In what will be the biggest shakeup in 50 years, local government in England will be restructured into unitary authorities and strategic authorities.

• Strategic Authorities – these will be responsible for large-scale transport, infrastructure and development. They will cover geographies with populations greater than 1,500,000 and will have mayors.
• Unitary Authorities – these will be part of strategic authorities and will be responsible for local public services. As a guide, they will cover geographies with populations of 500,000.
  
  

Berkshire has a population of 950,000 and so is too small to be a strategic authority and so will be looking for other partners. Berkshire today has six authorities each with roughly 150,000 populations (indicative population statistics by authority in England can be found here – https://totalpopulation.co.uk/authority).

Musing about the possibilities for unitary authorities in Berkshire, the obvious answer is an east – west split with the Royal Borough, Bracknell Forest and Slough forming one, and Reading, Wokingham and West Berkshire forming the other.

There is however political resistance to Slough being part of such a new unitary, and in any case, Slough has been in discussion with Hillingdon about joining this London council.

Further, West Berkshire has been in discussion with the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire councils about forming a new unitary authority to the west. 

These two initiatives would leave a new unitary authority comprising the Royal Borough, Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham.

There are also options for a new strategic authority where Berkshire and Oxfordshire would form the Thames Valley Strategic Authority. There is also the possibility of Buckinghamshire joining this authority to make 2,500,000 in total.

The transition to the new structures will be phased. A group of councils have put themselves forward as part of a government devolution priority programme, which will be implemented in April 2027. Surrey and Hampshire are part of this group of frontrunners.

Other councils including Berkshire will need to be implemented as part of the reorganisation in April 2028.

SPAE will be across these various options as it has an interest, particularly when it comes to planning and how it would be resourced and where the department would be located.  

Patrick Griffin