ON November 17 at a Full Council Meeting at Poole Civic Centre a motion was put forward for ‘The creation of a Unitary Authority covering the present boundaries of the four authorities Poole, Bournemouth, Christchurch, and East Dorset Councils’.

This was item 15 (ii) on the agenda.

This motion was pushed forward without any consultation with the people of Poole and was never even put before a scrutiny committee.

As this will lead to a change of governance for the people of Poole, I believe that our elected representatives who signed this motion did this without working in the best interest of the very people they represent.

Under the Localism Act people may call for a local referendum when it concerns matters such as a change of governance providing they get a petition signed by at least five per cent of the local electorate.

Poole has an electorate of 72,557 (last election figures) so to give the people a say on this in a Local Referendum this petition will need at least 3,628 signatures.

If you want to have your say ensure you get as many people to sign this as possible.

The petition can be found at: https://www.change.org/p/poole-council-cllr-ann-stribley-cllr-janet-walton-andrew-flockhart-call-for-a-local-referendum-on-poole-councils-combined-unitary-authority-plan

Regardless of whether people are in favour or not of this combined authority idea, I do think it is way beyond the council’s remit not to give the people they are supposed to be serving a say in this.

I urge people of all four council areas to utilise the Localism Act and force the council to give the people the say they deserve to have.

Marty Caine

Albert Road, Poole