CHRISTCHURCH should seek to keep its council as it is after residents overwhelmingly rejected the merger plan, an MP says.

Last week a local referendum on the Future Dorset plan to combine the town with Bournemouth and Poole under a single unitary council saw 84 per cent of voters reject the proposal, on a turnout of 54 per cent.

Christchurch MP Christopher Chope said the borough should now seek to persuade Communities Secretary Sajid Javid that the Future Dorset plan does not have local consent, and to maintain the status quo in Dorset with the county council and six districts.

“We would save the costs of disaggregating county council services, we would save the £25 million cost of putting the plan into action, we could keep our partnership with East Dorset,” he said. “There must be significant costs associated with disaggregation as we would lose the benefits of scale.”

Mr Chope said he had submitted a list of questions about the costs of the plan to the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Joint Committee, which met on Friday last week, but had yet to receive an answer.

“These questions are fundamental to being able to evaluate the alternative option, which is that Bournemouth and Poole do what they want with the rest of the county remaining two tier,” he said.

“If we want the best local government in this area we need to have open disclosure of documents and information.

“There is no proper cost/benefit plan or business analysis that the public has seen. I can’t see how the Secretary of State could make a rational decision without it.” Ultimately, timing may dictate the nature of Christchurch council’s approach to Mr Javid.

The borough is holding an extraordinary meeting on January 2 to discuss presenting an alternative to Future Dorset, but this must be submitted by January 8. Council leader David Flagg and other members have indicated to the Echo that if some form of the super council proposal is to go ahead they would prefer to see Christchurch combined with the ‘rural’ or ‘shire’ unitary comprising the former county and district councils, rather than the conurbation.

Several councillors remain committed to the Future Dorset plan however, particularly now that East Dorset and Purbeck have both reversed their previous decisions to reject it.

Cllr Trevor Watts said the borough had “missed the opportunity” to be a major player.

He was dismissive of the borough remaining part of a two-tier system, or joining with the wider Dorset unitary.

“Christchurch is the rich uncle looking after Dorset, parts of which are a lot worse off than we are. We are the rich person bailing them out,” he said.

“If we go in with Bournemouth and Poole we are the poor pensioner, and they would be helping us out, I prefer that scenario.”