RPA Council Plans are Divisive beyond Description - Wilson
Ulster Unionist Spokesperson on the Review of Public Administration, Jim Wilson, has restated his opposition to the seven-council model and added that the UUP will now be consulting on the details of the local government boundary commission provisional recommendations.
In a statement, the South Antrim MLA said: “The Party, in tandem with our constituency associations, will be closely consulting on the detail of this document.
“The names for these proposed new councils are neither interesting nor imaginative. Indeed, Mr MacKenzie himself has said that he consulted historians on council names, but without success.
“Given that no unifying names could be found, does this not emphasize the utter lack of local identity within the seven-council model? These councils have so defied and divided public opinion that they even defy academic opinion on appropriate local description.
“Whatever structures are created it is important that they reflect local identity, particularly in rural areas. This is obviously not the case under present plans.”
He added: “In January Belfast City Council supported a motion by Sir Reg Empey which stated that the seven-council model ‘will inevitably create democratic deficit, limit local accountability and identity and, in the longer term, will negatively impact on community relations’.
“In Belfast, as indeed across Northern Ireland, I believe the political will exists to turn government over on this issue.”
Concluding he said: “I understand that these proposals are due to go before a legislature in July next year. I want that legislature to be the Northern Ireland Assembly. Because at that point, the UUP will lobby hard on opposition to the seven-council model in favour of a much more equitable system.
“We support a more efficient and more effective local government. But the seven-council model is the most ineffective and divisive of all options on the table.”