The Frome and Somerton MP writes:

Later this year in May, we will have the first elections for the new Somerset Council. The existing County Council and the four District Councils — Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton, and South Somerset — are to be replaced with a single Council governing the whole of Somerset.

It has been a long time coming; many will remember that a similar proposal for a unitary authority was made (and soundly rejected) back in 2007. But times change, and the ever-growing pressures on local councils to deliver their vital services has increasingly made clear the need for a more joined-up approach throughout the county. It is not a cost-cutting exercise, nor an attempt to dilute political engagement with local issues. It is simply the recognition that more needs to be done, and that better infrastructure is needed, to help our local authorities do what they do best.

But while 25 years of gestation may seem like a long struggle, that was actually the easy part. Walter Bagehot — our own local constitutionalist, just down the road in Langport — was very clear on this. As he put it, the "great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second." Putting the new structures into place is relatively straightforward. The trick is making them work.

Reflecting upon how political institutions evolve and sustain themselves, Bagehot noted that the challenge was "not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better." When the first proposal for a unitary authority was rejected in 2007, there was a genuine concern that there would be too few representatives covering too large an area. It would be too difficult for residents to get in touch with their local councillors, and that it would be too difficult for councillors to keep abreast of local developments. And that certainly would have been a step backwards.

When the new Somerset Council sits in April 2023, there will be 110 councillors covering Somerset. That's twice the size of the existing County Council, and integrating the functions previously divided up between County and District Councils. That's definitely an improvement on the previous proposal, but there is still that tricky second step which Bagehot mentions. We need to make it work.

And that means we need as many different voices and perspectives to be heard in the local elections in May. We need as many people as possible to get involved and to cast their vote. That way we can really make it a unitary authority for Somerset.