Agenda and draft minutes

Members may make any declarations of interest at this point and may also make them at any point during the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made at this point in the meeting.

The Chairman explained the item of business for the Extraordinary Meeting was the Local Government Reorganisation options paper, and he invited the Chief Executive to introduce the report.

The Chief Executive explained that the report in front of Members set out the latest position in respect to Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), the timeline which local authorities were required to work to, and a proposal that contained six potential options for reorganisation in Lincolnshire, detailed in Appendix A of the report.

There were four recommendations in the report, with the substantive recommendation being Recommendation 2, which covered the proposal that was suggested to be submitted to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) by 21 March 2025. In considering the options presented within the report, Members were reminded that it was important to consider the proposal which had been developed represented a moment in time and Members were not necessarily required, at this stage, to commit to any one particular option.

It was explained that the Minister had stated that the interim submission due on 21 March was a ‘temperature check’ and there would be time for refinement and further development ahead of the requirements to submit a final proposal on 28 November 2025. As such, by submitting the presented proposal, the Council was not restricted at this stage to those six options, and there would be opportunity to continue working on a final option, both cross party within the Council and with Leaders across Greater Lincolnshire.

The proposal under consideration contained six initial options, and, in the absence of any local consensus on suitable geographies, Officers had drawn up a menu of options presenting a high-level, data-based appraisal of each. The data used reflected the challenges and opportunities presented to West Lindsey from the perspective of people and place, predominantly focused on the economy, deprivation, demographics, health and wellbeing, employment and skills, and housing. From an organisational perspective, the higher-level financial analysis of each of the options was also included. It was explained these were not exhaustive data sets, and further data would be used to help refine the options ready for the submission of any final proposal, based on the direction of the Council, based on the discussions during the current meeting and over the coming months.

Members heard there was no consensus in Greater Lincolnshire around a single model, and a number of proposals had been circulated over the previous days from other councils. All ten Greater Lincolnshire Leaders had committed to work together to develop a final proposal that was in the best interests of the people of Lincolnshire. Whilst there were differing views on boundaries, there was a broad alignment on principles. Similar data sets had been used across each council to assess the merits of each option. Most interim proposals were focused on a place-based approach, and all but two of the interim proposals published favoured a three-unitary model, merging the two unitaries of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire and dividing the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 75.