Phil Rodgers: What council reorganisation could mean for our local politics

Around the middle of December, while normal people were out shopping for those last few Christmas presents, local government nerds like me were busily hitting ‘refresh’ on their web browsers waiting for the new government’s English Devolution White Paper to be published.

When it finally appeared, it brought the promise of the most sweeping changes to local government since the 1970s. Long-established county and district councils will be swept away, new unitary councils will spring up to take their place, and combined authorities will gain new powers from central government. This isn’t just about bringing responsibility for bins and potholes together under a single council. It represents a profound change in how local services are delivered, and which politicians are in charge of them. Here’s a look at what this could mean around Cambridge.

The map shows the county’s current council areas, and the population of each one at the 2021 census. Peterborough already has a unitary council; the rest of the county has a two-tier system, with Cambridgeshire County Council responsible for services like social care, highways, and libraries, and district council services including council housing, the planning system, and bin collections. After the reorganisation, the map is likely to look very different, with all these councils replaced by a small number of new unitaries.

The government has set out some rules for the reorganisation. The new unitary councils have to be built out of the existing districts, and should have a population of at least 500,000, though there is some wiggle room on this. The existing councils have been asked to produce an initial plan for reorganisation by 21 March, and at the moment there are some pretty urgent conversations going on locally to try to come up with one.

Agreeing which districts should go into which unitaries is fraught with difficulty, and I will be surprised and pretty impressed if a consensus does emerge for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Indeed, it’s quite possible that the existing councils may develop two or more rival plans, which the government will then have to decide between.

There’s a lot to take into account. Where are the natural community boundaries? Will a new council be large enough to deliver social care effectively? What should the balance be between urban and rural areas? And, inevitably, if you are an elected councillor - can my party possibly hope to win power in this new council area?

To give an idea of the answer to this last question, let’s take a look at some different options for a new unitary council around Cambridge, and see what the political makeup might look like for each one. To do this, I’ve used the vote shares and seats won at the last county council elections in 2021, shown in the graphic. While a lot has happened politically since then, this still gives us an idea of the starting point for different possible greater Cambridge councils.

When Cambridge City Council debated local government reorganization in 2023, well before the Devolution White Paper was even on the horizon, the ruling Labour group included the option of “a single tier council… framed around the urban geography of the city” in the motion that was passed. A unitary council on Cambridge’s current boundaries would certainly be pretty good news for Labour – in 2021 they won 42 per cent of the vote and nine of the 12 county council seats, and even today they would certainly expect to be the largest party. However, the city’s population of 146,000 is well short of the government’s 500,000 target.

What happens if you make a unitary council out of Cambridge city and South Cambs district? This gives a population of 308,000, but changes the political complexion firmly from red to yellow. At the 2021 county elections, the Lib Dems won 39 per cent of the vote across this area, but the vagaries of first past the post delivered them 16 of the 27 seats, a comfortable majority. In this scenario the Lib Dems could finally be back in control of Cambridge, years after losing power at the Guildhall in 2014.

Let’s throw East Cambs District into the mix. This only brings the population up to 396,000, still short of the government target. Politically it’s still looking good for the Lib Dems. Their vote share is down a touch to 38 per cent, but they still won a majority of the county council seats across this area in 2021, taking 19 of the 35.

Only when we add Huntingdonshire to our hypothetical greater Cambridge unitary council do we finally evict the Lib Dems from overall control. They are still the largest party, with 20 seats to 19 for the Conservatives, 9 Labour and 4 Independents, even though the Conservatives got more votes. We also reach the government population target, with 577,000 residents across this sprawling area. However, this leaves only 319,000 for Peterborough and Fenland.

Strictly speaking, the overall population of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough isn’t quite big enough for two unitary councils with half a million residents each. Could we end up being governed by one giant unitary council? I don’t think this is very likely. The government has made it clear that the 500,000 target is flexible, and in any case our population growth means that we’ll probably be over the million mark before too long.

The big picture, then, is that a new unitary council around Cambridge looks quite likely to be led by the Lib Dems, at least based on votes in the 2021 local elections. But there have been some fairly seismic changes in the political landscape since then. How does that affect things?

My reading of the situation is that it still looks pretty good for the Lib Dems. Labour are down around 10 points in the polls since 2021, and the Conservatives, who were riding high at 42 per cent, are now down to barely half that. The big gainers, of course, are Reform UK, who were bumping along the bottom of the polls at around 3 per cent in 2021, but are now challenging for first place nationally. However, I think their main impact on elections in the greater Cambridge area will be to split the Conservative vote.

While there’s a long way to go, and undoubtedly more political turmoil to come, local government reorganisation could be very good news for Cambridge Liberal Democrats.