Southport out of Sefton brigade should think again

Letter to the editor – OTS News Southport 

Torbay Council has been in the news because although it went alone in 1998 it has now run out of money and taken the first steps to handing responsibility back to Devon County Council for running its threatened ser- vices.

In the words of its Mayor “We are too small to be a unitary authority and continue to fund these services.” Ever since Torbay became a unitary authority the Tory and Lib Dem administration has been struggling to provide services on a tight budget in a geographic- ally small area. The relevance to our town is that this unity authority set-up would be much the same arrangements as our MP and many councillors are now trying to push as some sort of magical cure for all of Southport’s ills.

The inevitable result of splitting Sefton would be inferior services, soaring council taxes to pay for reorganisation as well as more councillors.

The added complication for Southport would be the loss of concessionary travel as we would no longer be within the City Region and therefore outside the Merseytravel area.