A MEETING to make key decisions about a new Dorset super-council – including what it should be called and when elections would be held – was all over in 20 minutes.

Councillors from across Dorset gathered at Bournemouth Town Hall, along with their highest-paid officers, for a meeting of the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole joint committee.

Crucial decisions were rubber-stamped in time for the meeting to break up at 9.50am, 20 minutes after it started, with most councillors not saying a word.

The committee agreed a recommendation that the powerful new authority in the south of Dorset will be called Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council – if local government secretary Sajid Javid backs the proposals.

Mr Javid has already said he is “minded” to back the idea, but giving it final approval would mean rejecting the views of a Christchurch postal referendum, which found 84 per cent of respondents were against the plans.

A ‘task and finish’ group of councillors had already made a package of recommendations about the new authority.

The new council would hold elections in May 2019 and every four years thereafter, the committee decided.

A shadow authority will be set up in the meantime, considering of all 120 councillors in the area – 54 from Bournemouth, 42 from Poole and 24 Christchurch. Key decisions will be taken by an executive, chosen entirely from the majority Conservative group, with eight members from Bournemouth, six from Poole and two from Christchurch.

The shadow authority will meet for the first time in the early summer this year.

The government has ordered a review of council ward boundaries, which is due to report by December.

However, councillors have agreed a fall-back position based on existing boundaries, which will be used in May 2019 if the review is not finished in time.

It would keep the 76 existing council wards or county council divisions across the three towns, but the number of councillors representing them is up for discussion.

The councils will aim to even out the number of voters per councillor.

In an illustration of a possible structure, Hamworthy, Canford Heath and Branksome would see their two council wards merged into one each, but with three councillors instead of the current two. Other areas which currently have three councillors would have two.

Recommendations about the new council’s structure were passed by 16-0, while the electoral arrangements were passed 15-0, with Merley and Bearwood Liberal Democrat David Brown abstaining.

Cllr Brown was among the few councillors to speak, pointing out that the committee's website had mistakenly listed the meeting’s start time as 10am. By that time, it had been over for 10 minutes.