The County Councils' Network (CCN) will hold back from calling for historic boundaries to determine the entire local government map in the coming reorganisation shake-up, The MJ understands. A report for CCN this week led by Nick King, who was chief of staff to Sajid Javid when he was local government secretary, said the reorganisation planned in next month's White Paper on devolution and local recovery would be much more radical 'in an ideal world'. The report suggested Cheshire East Council and Cheshire West & Chester Council should recombine, the city unitaries within Lancashire should become part of a new Lancashire unitary authority, and cities like Derby, Nottingham and Leicester should 'fold back into their counties and be the homes of the new county authorities overseeing each of these areas'.However, the report added: 'But we think such steps are probably a bridge too far for the Government and there is relatively little clamour for significant changes from local government actors. Our view at this point, then, is that these unitaries are best left as they are.' It is understood that CCN has accepted this despite agreeing with the report that smaller unitaries 'most likely lead to poorer economic performance' and backing a minimum population size of at least 400,000, with no upper limit.
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