'Stop riding roughshod over local democracy' says Harborough MP and council leader

Harborough leaders are uniting to fight plans to ditch local councils.

Harborough’s MP and council leader have put out a unified call for the government to, in their opinion, ‘stop riding roughshod over local democracy’.

Both Mr Neil O’Brien MP and Harborough District Council (HDC) leader Phil Knowles have contacted local government minister Jim McMahon to meet to discuss plans to abolish local councils and govern Leicestershire via a single unitary authority.

MP Mr O’Brien said: “I am pushing the minister to get around a table with Cllr Knowles, Cllr Haq and other district and borough leaders. This doesn't always happen but we are as one, the minister must talk with us.

“People here don't want to see our local councils abolished and it is wrong that this is being done to local people by central government, without people here even being asked. Worse still, government are talking about potentially cancelling the elections here. They have no mandate to do this."

HDC leader Phil Knowles previously wrote to the minister, describing the plans for a simplified structure as ‘one single doughnut unitary’. He said it made no geographical sense and would prove ‘dysfunctional’ in delivering services.