Statement by David Orr to TDBC Full Council 3rd October 2017

I have written to the Local Government Secretary of State Sajid Javid opposing the
planned merger of this Council with West Somerset Council.

I wont read that letter out as it has already been distributed to you.

We are all here tonight sharing a facility with the County Council.

Sadly, this is a temporary arrangement while Deane House undergoes an expensive

makeover, which will not be reflected in the uplift to the value of Deane House once
completed.

You wouldnt take out debt like this for a makeover of your own home if the value
afterwards failed to reflect the costs.

Next door to us is County Hall with significant spare space that has also undergone
modernisation and is a ready-to-go office.

I would have supported a cost-neutral sale of both County Hall and Deane House to be
replaced with a new and iconic shared building at Firepool; to kick-start the development of
that derelict brownfield site and to bring to Taunton some architecture that reflects the
status of a County Town, rather than the bland multi-storey boxes we see about us now.

We have now had seven years of austerity after the reckless big banks crashed the
economy.

Here in Somerset, that austerity shows no signs of letting up: More Childrens Centres are
set to close; bus routes are closed or cut back; social care is struggling with bed blocking a
live issue; care homes are closing in increasing numbers; our roads are potholed and
patched and in Taunton, there is a massive mismatch between extensive new
developments and the new infrastructure and school places to support them.

Despite all these community service cuts and clear voter fatigue with austerity, we still
have in Taunton two public sector offices within 10 minutes walk of each other. Both are
capable of accommodating the Police and other partners.

That is costly with unnecessary duplication of overheads in buildings, IT and people.

Can you imagine Marks and Spencer having one store in North Street and another in
Station Road? Of course not.

If this were your own business would you waste money on having two of everything in the
same town serving the same customer base? Of course not.
How do we ask taxpayers to pay additional council tax or national insurance to support, as
one example, better funded elderly social care as the population ages, when the two
Councils located here in our County Town of Somerset cannot simply work together in the
same building to save money for frontline services?

Our neighbouring Shire County of Dorset has shown leadership and vision by calling in the
Boundary Commission to improve public service delivery and reduce the implicit waste
and inefficiencies in having 9 councils divided into two confusing tiers of Local
Government.

Somerset, with the Conservatives overwhelmingly in control (apart from South Somerset
Council with a shared control) has not shown the same vision and leadership, to take a
whole-Somerset approach to efficiently organised local government, as Dorset has done.
Why not?

I opposed the merger of Taunton Deane Council with West Somerset Council from the
outset because I thought the proposal lacked ambition and scale and would therefore lack
long-term financial sustainability.

I hope that the Secretary of State Sajid Javid will take note of the sincere points in my
letter and bring in the Boundary Commission for a whole-Somerset review of how public
services are organised and delivered across our County.

Somerset deserves a less parochial approach to defending an indefensible and costly 6

council two-tier status quo when austerity and key community service cuts continue.