BOURNEMOUTH and Poole councils must merge their services and chief officer teams to safeguard frontline services.

That’s the view of Bournemouth East MP, Tobias Ellwood, who is today calling on council bosses in both towns to throw their lot in with each other.

And he says with Bournemouth’s chief executive, Pam Donnellan, retiring in a matter of months, now is the right time to do it.

He told the Daily Echo: “In the current economic climate we can no longer afford to continue running duplicate services and identical office structures.”

He added: “Closer collaboration could lead to huge savings and protection of frontline services or even saving them from closure.”

All councils are under massive pressure from central government to slash their budgets – which means either shedding staff or cutting services.

Mr Ellwood points to numerous examples of where local councils have done exactly what he is proposing – Christchurch and East Dorset is one.

Neighbouring Bournemouth and Poole are ‘standalone’ unitary authorities providing all services, including education, children’s and adult services, libraries, rubbish collection and car parking.

Any move to combine services – or go further and fully merge – has always been hugely controversial and strongly resisted.

But Mr Ellwood says he is not advocating a full merger. Both councils would retain their own elected councillors and “political integrity.”

He said residents would not notice any difference to their services.

Council leader, Cllr Peter Charon said: “My door is always open to ideas and I am very happy to have a debate about this.

“But we have done pretty well in making around £32m-worth of savings in the four years and we’re ahead of the game.

“We feel we need a chief executive who is 100 per cent dedicated to Bournemouth right now but I am more than willing to respond to ideas.”

He said there was a constant dialogue with other councils to see how they could co-operate.

Bournemouth Tory Cllr Nick King said: “The idea has merit. There are lots of potential benefits to sharing staff or services, not least that it saves everybody money in tough times. It is a shame that we are advertising for a new chief executive without even thinking about this.”

But Mr Ellwood’s proposal is opposed by his fellow Bournemouth MP Conor Burns.

He said: “I don’t think it’s the business of MPs to tell local councils how to manage their affairs. It’s not a top down thing.

“In any case Bournemouth and Poole councils are at different stages and face different challenges.

“Bournemouth has done extremely well in making savings and I would not want that progress to be contaminated.”