Dorset’s new unitary council should not only keep local government jobs in Weymouth and Portland – but move more posts to the area.

Borough councillors backed a Green Party motion to do that at a meeting on Thursday.

Dr Jon Orrell said it was a nonsense that thousands of local people drove up the Ridgeway to Dorchester to work, when the new council could bring jobs, and better economic chances to the borough.

But although the motion was almost unanimously passed by borough councillors it may be one step too far for the new Dorset Council.

A similar motion put to the last meeting of the Dorset County Council by Cllr Clare Sutton was rejected.

Borough councillors suggested that a better way to achieve the aim was to directly ask the Shadow Executive to consider a business case to bring jobs to the borough. The executive, of which borough councillors Cllr Jeff Cant and Cllr Colin Huckle, are members, is preparing for the new unitary council when it comes into being in April 2019.

Cllr Orrell said that the borough needed year-round jobs with prospects as well as seasonal workers and one of the major ways to achieve that was through the new unitary Dorset Council.

He said: "If we are to reinvigorate the borough this is the ideal opportunity…the new council could place HQ staff in the borough where jobs are needed…

“Around 5,000 people leave Weymouth and Portland each day to go to jobs, many of them in Dorchester – how much better it would be if those jobs were here.”

Cllr Kate Weller backed the proposal but said that last time a similar motion was tried at Dorset County Council, it met with a ‘scathing response’.

She said that plans had already been made to move social workers from Weymouth to Dorchester.

She said: “There is no reason why social services are moving those jobs to Dorchester – they should stay in Weymouth.”

She said that unless the borough had what she called ‘decent jobs’ it would face an increasing trend of second and holiday homes forcing local people out of the housing market.

Cllr Paul Kimber said existing county council policy had worsened the borough’s economic problems and said: “ We should all talk about this and debate it, not only in this chamber.

“We’ve been left behind and we’ve got a real battle on our hands to make our voices heard.”

Cllr Mike Byatt said much of that ‘battle’ would be on how councillors, and others, shaped and influence the new council.

“Councillors Cant and Huckle can express our views – but we will need to make a business case.”

Said Cllr Ray Novak: “I was speaking three years ago about not exporting jobs to Dorchester and was told to shut up. It seems the penny had now dropped that we need council jobs in Weymouth and Portland and that’s the message we need to drive home.”

“We should make the case that we are the biggest conurbation in the new council and that services and investment needs to come to Weymouth and Portland.”