Ward Councillor Report - September

Work is continuing at pace at Rutland County Council to prepare for the creation of a new Leicestershire and Rutland unitary authority on 1 April 2028. Until that date I will remain as your ward councillor and RCC will continue to provide services to residents. As your representative on the council I will work to make sure that this handover is as seamless as possible. This will be a completely new authority formed by combining services, people, assets and liabilities from all district councils, parts of Leicestershire County Council and all Rutland County Council into a large unitary council. This is a huge task and it is likely that full integration will take many years to complete.

Legal structures for the new authority are currently being put in place and if you are interested in knowing more about this see the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland futures website.  www.futurellrcouncils.gov.uk.

Shadow elections for the new authority will take place in May 2027 and new wards have now been determined which will mean that Rutland elects 7 councillors out of a total 94. The boundaries of this area will remain as Rutland but instead of 27 councillors, wards will now be much larger (about 4,300 electors rather than the current 1,200). Whissendine will be joined with Langham and Barleythorpe to elect one councillor to represent this area (Gwash Valley West) for 5 years. All Rutland wards apart from Oakham have been named after river valleys for these election/administration purposes only. These warding arrangements will then be reviewed by the Boundary Commission before the next election in 2032.

I know that Rutland’s identity is important to so many people and am pleased that due to our representations, the Rutland name is included in the name of the new authority which has been confirmed by the government.