Reigate & Banstead publishes proposals for local government organisation for consideration by Councillors

Councillors across all political parties will be asked to consider the proposals before the Council’s Executive makes the final decision about supporting submissions to Government on 9 May. Similar discussions will take place at other council meetings across the county in the coming days.

The published documents include a proposal (authored by district and borough councils) to replace the existing twelve councils in Surrey with a three unitary arrangement as well as a two unitary proposal (authored by Surrey County Council). In addition, there is a further supplementary report setting out the case for bringing Reigate & Banstead and Crawley together into the same unitary authority. 

On 6 May, all three reports will be considered by Reigate & Banstead councillors, along with a recommendation to support the three unitary proposal and the separate Reigate & Banstead / Crawley submission. When Interim Plans were submitted to Government in March, the Council agreed its preference for a three unitary arrangement; and a letter about the opportunities for a cross-boundary solution was also sent to the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution.

The proposals published today expand on the Interim Plans - providing more in-depth information and financial detail, and responding to specific feedback provided by the Government on the Interim Plans.

Resident engagement

To help inform the proposals, Reigate & Banstead ran a resident survey from 31 March to 21 April – which was completed by 1,461 residents. It provided useful insights around what our residents value in their local areas and communities, how they prefer to engage with democratic processes and decision making, how they use and contribute to local economies and what they value about Reigate & Banstead as their local council. Residents were also asked for their priorities around local government reorganisation, their positive and negative views on services being run by a larger council and any preferences for the number of unitary councils in Surrey.

Survey results

The survey highlighted that residents see potential benefits of moving services run by Reigate & Banstead to a larger council to include cost savings, improved services, more consistency and clearer accountability. However, concerns raised focused on a larger council being more removed from the community (‘less connection’, ‘less understanding’, ‘loss of local voice’), concerns about delivery of poorer services, the costs involved with local government organisation, less accountability and loss of local identity.  A detailed summary of results is published as appendix 5.

Leader of Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, Cllr Richard Biggs, said, “Ensuring we understand the views of our residents as we submit a proposal to Government is critical to us. Above all else we are committed to influencing Government as best we can to make the right decision for our residents, our communities, businesses and wider borough. We’re grateful to everyone who provided us their views, all of which have contributed to the shaping of the proposals”.

“I’m confident that the proposals we are recommending to Council outline the best solution – achieving the best balance of delivering value for money for our residents whilst maintaining strong local connections and identities and high quality service. Beyond that, we also want to ensure we are maximising local economic growth in the surrounding area.

“I look forward to discussing the proposals at Full Council before we make the final submissions to Government.”

Next steps

Government is expected to decide on proposals by the end of the year. If approved, legislation will be passed to allow the changes, and elections for new shadow unitary councils will be held in May 2026, with a view to the new unitaries going live in May 2027.

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Notes to editors

1. Proposals

All proposals are published on: https://reigate-banstead.moderngov.co.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=12628#mgDocuments

2. Geographic areas

In the proposed three unitary model, preferred geographic areas outlined are:

• East Surrey: Epsom & Ewell, Mole Valley, Reigate & Banstead, Tandridge (population 410,000 residents)
• North-west Surrey: Elmbridge, Runnymede, Spelthorne (population 330,000 residents)
• South-west Surrey: Guildford, Waverley, Woking, Surrey Heath (population 470,000 residents)

     In the proposed two unitary model, the preferred geographic areas outlined are:

• East Surrey: Epsom & Ewell, Mole Valley, Reigate & Banstead, Tandridge, Elmbridge (population 546,000 residents)
• West Surrey: Guildford, Waverley, Woking, Surrey Heath, Runnymede, Spelthorne (population 657,000 residents)

3. Resident engagement

To support local consideration of the proposals for the 9 May submission a Reigate & Banstead Residents’ Survey was undertaken, running from 31 March to 21 April. In total 1461 responses were received. Appendix 5 provides a summary of the survey methodology and findings. The findings have informed the development of appendix 3 and headlines were shared with the team drafting the Surrey Districts and Boroughs Proposal at Appendix 1.  All of these documents are published with the meeting agenda.

In addition, a joint resident survey, Shaping Surrey’s Future was coordinated by Surrey districts and boroughs. The results of this have helped inform the joint three unitary proposal.