A GROUP lobbying for the merger of Dorset’s councils is calling on Christchurch tax payers to “break their silence” and come out in support of the change.

Christchurch councillors recently voted not to join Bournemouth and Poole in lobbying for one big council across the conurbation.

East Dorset and Purbeck also dissented from the plans to replace Dorset’s nine main authorities with two “super-councils”.

But the pressure group Uniting the Conurbation is calling on Christchurch residents to lobby their politicians over the issue.

The group has been lobbying for a merger of the main councils in south east Dorset since before the idea was taken up by the area’s council leaders. Key figures in the group include two former Bournemouth council leaders, Conservative David Trenchard and Liberal Democrat Douglas Eyre.

Mr Trenchard said: “The East Dorset, Purbeck and Christchurch councils which are part of Dorset County Council voted at their recent meetings not to accept the county-wide proposals to voluntarily join the re-organisation into two unitary councils.

“This is a strange situation because the Dorset County Council itself has voted to abolish itself and support the plan.

“At the moment the council tax in Christchurch, for example, is more than the adjacent proposed unitary of Poole and Bournemouth – surely into the future this divide will grow. What do the tax payers in Christchurch think of this themselves?”

He added: “We call upon the tax payers themselves to break their silence and join in the debate and tell their councillors and their MP what they really feel.”

In a consultation exercise last year, the results from a statistically selected sample showed 63 per cent of 459 respondents backing the merger. But in an "open" consultation where respondents were self-selecting, 54 per cent of 1,446 were against the idea.

Dorset’s council leaders recently wrote to local government secretary Sajid Javid, asking him to dissolve the current structure of local government in Dorset.

But even before their letter was sent, Christchurch mayor Cllr Trish Jamieson had written to point out that her council’s members had dissented. Their vote went against the wishes of the borough’s leader, Cllr Ray Nottage.

She told the Daily Echo at the time: “We’re asking for clarification because in the past we’ve been told that the government wouldn’t use its power to force change on any authority. We’ve asked them to confirm it’s not the government’s wish for the two-tier system to be abolished.”