Waveney District Council Leader Mark Bee will be urging the Boundary Committee to ‘Keep us local’ at a special Boundary Review event in Beccles on Friday.

A public consultation runs until Friday 26 September and the event has been organised to provide residents and community groups with information about Waveney’s proposals for a new East Suffolk unitary authority. Cllr Bee will be outside the Kings Head hotel in Market Street from 10am to 2pm on Friday September 5 and will seek to provide a whole range of information on the current proposals and Waveney District Council’s robust response.

He said: “I strongly believe that an East Suffolk council would best serve the people of Waveney, keeping the market towns of Beccles, Bungay, Halesworth and Southwold at the very heart of a progressive, dynamic and logical new authority.

“East Suffolk has a clear identity; a sense of place and I want any new authority to focus on the economic development of our coastal communities and market towns. A giant Suffolk mega-council would be remote and out of touch. How could such a structure provide real community leadership for the people of Beccles if it is based in Ipswich or Bury St Edmunds?

“This council would be big enough to have a crucial voice in the region, but I also want local decision making in the hands of local residents. The best vehicle for this is a strategically powerful but locally accountable East Suffolk Council.”

Waveney District Council has formed an alliance with St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Forest Heath District Council and all three share the view that the best option for Suffolk would be a three unitary arrangement: East, West and ‘North Haven’.

Cllr Bee continued: “We all want to keep the ‘local’ in Local Government and are united in our desire to preserve the individual and unique identities within our county. We will seek to cut costs and save Council Tax payers' money but local community engagement and local democracy will be a priority and we can do this far more efficiently through a three unitary structure which focuses on our own unique areas. We are telling the Boundary Committee to ‘Keep us local’”

For more information on ‘Keep us local’ go to the dedicated website which will go live this week: www.keepuslocal.net  

Waveney District Council has its own comprehensive LGR web area at: http://www.waveney.gov.uk/Your+Council/Local+Government+Review/  

People can express their views on the proposals by using the online form at: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/boundary-reviews/all-reviews/eastern/suffolk/suffolk-structural-review  

Alternatively, you can write to: Review Manager (Norfolk/Suffolk Review), The Boundary Committee for England, Trevelyan House, Great Peter Street, London SW1P 2HW or email: reviews@boundarycommittee.org.uk 

The closing date for responses is Friday 26 September.