Somerset Unitarisation

Residents and businesses in Somerset are currently served by a two-tier system of local government. Somerset County Council is responsible for services such as adult and children’s social care, maintaining roads and libraries, and the District Councils – Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton and South Somerset - are responsible for services such as rubbish collection, housing and planning and environmental health. The five councils in Somerset have been developing ideas about restructuring local government for some time and requested an invitation from the Secretary of State to submit proposals for unitary local government – a single tier of local government delivering all of the local government services for the area. On 9 October 2020 the Secretary of State invited the five Somerset councils, and the neighbouring unitary councils of North Somerset and Bath North East Somerset, to submit locally led proposals for unitar