I NOTE that Cllr Beesley (Echo, 13 Nov) included the cost of conducting a referendum in West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland, North Dorset and Purbeck to justify his claim of a £1million cost, despite these four districts being specifically excluded from his merger proposals for South East Dorset.

He also failed to address the main point of my letter – that the residents of the local area should have the final say on whether historic boroughs such as Poole and Christchurch should merge with Bournemouth and lose their independence.

None of the four local Conservative parties and leaders involved in this proposal stood for local election last May on a promise of merging authorities, none has a mandate from local residents to do so but all feel they can avoid involving residents in their decision to create a South East Dorset “Super-Council”.

Perhaps Cllr Beesley can now explain exactly why he does not trust local people to vote on the future of their council.

Cllr Philip Eades

Borough of Poole