Plan for extra Surrey councils shut down after £70,000 review

More than four in five respondents opposed creating two new parish-style ‘community councils’ for the borough, according to results published by Epsom & Ewell Borough Council on March 4.

The proposal had been put forward as part of a Community Governance Review (CGR), which explored whether new local councils could help represent residents’ voices ahead of local government reorganisation across Surrey.

Of the 2,203 people who responded to the consultation, 82 per cent said they did not support the idea. Only 14 per cent backed the creation of two councils, one for Epsom and one for Ewell, while four per cent expressed no clear view.

Council officers have now recommended ending the review altogether when councillors meet on March 12. Epsom & Ewell will be absorbed into East Surrey without any community councils.

For some councillors, the likely end of the review will come as a relief. Opposition members had previously branded the process a “waste of time” and a distraction from other priorities.

So far, the CGR has cost more than £70,000, though up to £300,000 had originally been set aside for the work.

The consultation asked residents about a plan to split the borough into two parish areas, each with its own elected council and two councillors per ward.

Parish councils can raise money through an additional charge on council tax, known as a precept.

Concerns about cost appeared to be a major sticking point. Of the 856 people who left written comments, 30 per cent questioned whether the proposals offered value for money, while 25 per cent said they were worried about a potential rise in council tax.

The second phase of the consultation attracted far more interest than the first. Phase one received just 352 responses, compared with more than 2,200 in phase two. Even so, both figures represent a small share of the borough’s roughly 77,000 registered voters.

Potential legal challenges

The review has not been without controversy. Resident and former chief executive of Croydon Council, Nathan Elvery, sent a legal pre-action letter to the borough council warning it could face a judicial review if it pushed ahead with the proposals.

A judicial review is a legal process where a court examines whether a public body has made a decision lawfully.

In the letter, addressed to the council’s chief executive Jackie King, Mr Elvery claimed the consultation process had “serious procedural deficiencies” that made it “fundamentally unfair”.

He challenged the council on a number of grounds including:

• Alleged flaws in the design of the first consultation survey
• Reliance on a small response rate of 0.06 per cent of the borough’s electors
• Fears that residents were not given the full financial information about potential community council tax precept
• Failure to present alternative options
• Consultation timing spanning across the Christmas holiday period

He also submitted a series of Freedom of Information requests seeking internal documents about the consultation and finances.

Mr Elvery asked the council defer any decision until the issues were addressed and warned he would launch legal proceedings if the council continued the CGR.

The council said it will respond to Mr Elvery “in due course”.

If councillors accept officers’ recommendation next week, the review will be formally concluded and the plans for community councils dropped.