COUNCILLORS have emphasised the need to empower town and parish councils if plans for restructured local government in Dorset go ahead.

It comes after district and county councillors indicated support for two unitary councils for Dorset to reduce costs and transform services.

At a full Dorset County Council meeting, councillors agreed a series of recommendations to create a tight timeline for the adoption of a new local government structure.

They agreed a timeline that would see proposals for local government reform submitted to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) by the end of January 2017.

Chief executive Debbie Ward said the DCLG was open to postponing the local elections planned for 2017 by a year in order to ease the transition.

Proposing that the recommendations be agreed, council leader Robert Gould said: "I think signs are very encouraging and the council now needs to show true leadership."

Cllr David Jones said: "We are beginning to shape something that is hopefully going to last and is hopefully going to provide better services for our constituents.

"We should not be telling people what they need; we should be asking them what they want."

Cllr Clare Sutton expressed concern that the proposed "double devolution" measure to give more powers to parish and town councils could become "subsumed by other criteria" as the plans move forward.

Cllr Sutton was assured by Cllr Rebecca Knox that a paper is currently being written on how a potential unitary authority could devolve powers down to smaller councils.

The meeting began with the appointment of Cllr Andrew Cattaway as the new chairman of the council.

An election was held to determine the role of vice-chairman, with Conservative nominee Cllr Hilary Cox beating Liberal Democrat candidate Cllr Beryl Ezzard and Cllr Kate Wheller, nominee for the Labour group.

Councillors took several opportunities to alert the council to issues with potholes in their wards.
Cllr Janet Dover said: "They seem to just appear and they are quite dangerous.

"I am just concerned that we are getting a grant specifically for the repair of these holes and we cannot see where that money is going."

Cllr Gould said the council was "making very good progress" on the issue and added that councillors would soon see "significant improvements" in the coming weeks. 

The meeting was also attended by three of the Dorset representatives in the UK Youth Parliament who Member of Youth Parliament Sarah Trott and Deputy Members of Youth Parliament Archie Rowell and Jake Perkins spoke to councillors about the issues they were keen to make a difference on, including bullying, body image, work experience and mental health.