14/11/2025
THIS IS IMPORTANT.
We are required by the government to move from a 2-tier system of local government to a single tier. This will certainly simplify things so if you have an issue you know who to go to, but there are some very real concerns by councillors across the county about how this will impact our residents. Of course, it is only relevant to individuals if and when they need support; for most people, most of the time, they get on with their lives and the council services just ‘happen’. However, when people do need support from a councillor, or officer, it’s so important that they have a real person to talk to.
On Wednesday night, Dacorum’s councillors voted resoundingly to support the option of a four unitary authority. This, if it gets through all the other stages, would put us in a unitary with just Dacorum and St Albans council areas.
In my opinion, this is the least ‘bad’ option. Your local council offers a very personal level of support at Borough level. The bigger the authority ends up, the further removed our housing, planning,waste, clean/safe/green etc officers are from local people.
In contrast, I believe that the two unitary option means when you need advice on housing, planning matters etc you may be speaking to someone half way across the county who has no local knowledge. The two unitary option puts us with St Albans, Three Rivers, Watford and Hertsmere. This option presents a very real danger of our council house stock being offloaded to a housing association (Three Rivers, Watford and Hertsmere have already done this). This would likely push up social house rents locally. Also, from a personal perspective, should this be the chosen option, your councillors’ ‘patches’ would be based on current county council divisions, with probably 3 councillors covering the work currently covered by one county councillor and in my area 5 borough councillors. I can’t see that I could serve my residents well if this was the way we go. On a positive note, this option would keep us with St Albans so won’t split the new Hemel Garden Communities (HGC) area.
The 3 unitary option is BY FAR the worst in my opinion. It separates us from St Albans, splits HGC in half, so we get the headache and St Albans get the council tax income. It puts us with Watford, which has no correlation with Dacorum, it’s much more akin to a London borough. Like the 2 unitary option it will also base the councillors’ areas on county divisions with 3 in each.
The 4 unitary option is the only one that works for me. It puts us with ONLY St Albans, so keeps us small enough to be able to continue the very local services and hands on approach with local knowledge from officers. From a councillor’s perspective, it also bases councillors on current wards, so workload would be manageable for councillors.
In a very strange legal process, for some reason the decision on Dacorum’s submission is not made by the full council, but by the cabinet. Wednesday’s vote (results in pic) is called an ‘indicative’ vote. That means it is just a demonstration of the will of the council, but the cabinet is not obliged to act on this. The cabinet meeting is on Tuesday evening, when we find out whether they will honour the wishes of the full council. It was a recorded vote, which means there is a published list of how everyone voted. All but one Lib Dem voted for the 2 unitary option, with one independent. Tories, Labour, one Lib Dem and the other independents voted 4.
Presently, the Liberal Democrats are the administration, despite them only having 17 councillors against 18 Tories, 5 Labour and 11 independents. The entire cabinet voted for the 2 unitary option. I sincerely hope that they will act on the recorded vote and put their own opinions aside. I’m sure they will, I believe this is the very best option for our residents.
Sorry for long post but it’s VERY important.
