AVBC leader hits out at other district authorities for seeking to divide it up

The leader of Amber Valley Borough Council has hit out at fellow district authorities for seeking to divide it up into parts.

Following a meeting on Thursday 6th November, Cllr Chris Emmas-Williams said the prospect of splitting up the borough was one that “failed to reflect the best interests of residents”.

This comes as Derbyshire’s eight district and borough councils and Derby City Council carry out their votes for which local government reorganisation bid they support.

The votes cast by the districts, boroughs and city will see four different options pitched to central Government for a final decision next year – alongside Derbyshire County Council’s separate option, following two parallel public consultations.

Amber Valley has voted to support the bid which would split Derbyshire into two northern and southern authorities, with Amber Valley sitting in the northern council alongside Bolsover, Chesterfield, Derbyshire Dales, High Peak and North East Derbyshire.

Meanwhile, at a simultaneous meeting, Erewash Borough Council voted for a bid which would split Amber Valley in half and pull Belper and Duffield, along with a number of villages, into the southern council, to join it, Derby and South Derbyshire.

South Derbyshire District Council has already voted in favour of the proposal to merge the whole of Amber Valley into the southern authority.

Meanwhile, Derbyshire Dales and several councils in the north of the county are looking to split Amber Valley a different way, with Belper in the north and Duffield in the south.

Councillors in the Dales, at a simultaneous meeting tonight, had been torn between the option to keep Amber Valley entirely in the north or to split it in two, but eventually backed the split.

The county council is set to back a bid that would create a single council for the whole of Derbyshire, including Derby, covering more than one million people.

Cllr Emmas-Williams, Labour, said: “We are extremely disappointed by the alternative proposals, which we believe fail to reflect the best interests of our residents or the integrity of the process.

“Particularly the suggestion that other councils should determine the future of Amber Valley and support splitting our borough.”

A quarter of the people who took part in the consultation from the districts and city council were from Amber Valley and there was majority support for moving the borough into the northern council.

Cllr James Dawson, Erewash Borough Council leader, told a meeting in Long Eaton that the option to split Amber Valley in two, with Belper and Duffield in the south, was “the best option” for facilitating growth in all directions around Derby.

He indicated that it also left an even population divide with 539,000 in the north and 538,000 in the south.

Cllr Dawson, Labour, said merging the districts into two larger authorities would help make them more resilient to financial challenges.

Cllr Wayne Major, Conservative opposition leader, said: “We have gone to the public and asked them what they want and none of them want it.

“We are now going for the least liked and most expensive and most complicated option.

“I don’t believe there will be massive savings. We are going to be paying more in council tax and people locally won’t have the luxury of being able to say their money is being spent locally.”

Cllr Harrison Broadhurst, Labour, said 75 per cent of people’s tax bills already went to the county council and that that same 75 per cent would in future be managed “closer to home”.

Cllr Joel Bryan, Labour, said the option to split Amber Valley and keep Belper and Duffield in the south was the “most economically sensible option” and matched people’s work travel routes.

Cllr Robert Mee, Liberal Democrat, said: “I don’t believe it will save a single penny.”

He did not support splitting Amber Valley, but to move it into the southern council, saying a split ignored the shared historic links between Ilkeston, Heanor and Langley Mill.

Cllr Becca Everett, Labour, said reducing the current 10 councils to two new ones would be “better than everything being in Matlock”.

In the vote, Labour and the Green Party supported the Amber Valley split with Belper and Duffield in the south, while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrat voted against, while Reform UK abstained from the vote.