SWINDON Borough Council’s unpopular plan to introduce new parish councils across the town has been dealt a further blow after South Swindon MP Robert Buckland raised concerns about the proposals.

The council needs to achieve a significant reduction in its costs between now and 2020 and in order to achieve that there are plans to shift responsibility for many community services to parish councils.

While 41 per cent of households already fall within parishes, the transfer of services will require the creation of four new councils to cover the remaining 59 per cent.

The council has proposed that these will be West Swindon, North Central Swindon, South Central Swindon and South Swindon but many, now including Mr Buckland, do not agree with the proposed boundaries.

While he agrees with the proposed West Swindon boundary, he argues there should be an East Swindon Parish and one large Central Swindon parish to stretch from Old Town in the south to Penhill in the north instead of an unpopular split through the centre of the town.

Mr Buckland said: “Having fewer new parish councils will provide a larger council tax base and provide economies of scale, allowing for future changes if there was local demand for a particular area to have its own parish.”

He has also voiced his concerns about the position with regard to contributions from local businesses.

The council has said they hope to secure a voluntary contribution from business of some £400,000 per year to offset the higher precept that would be required to provide services in areas with a high concentration of retail and commercial businesses.

However, as yet the council have been unable to provide any reassurance that local businesses are inclined to commit to such an idea.

Mr Buckland said: “I am concerned that the position with regard to local businesses is unclear. I do not think that there has been sufficient consultation with businesses and important issues such as the extent of the BID area have not been resolved.

“Due to these significant issues, I submit that it would be better not to go ahead with parishing of the Old Town and central area at this stage but to pilot the concept in another area first.”

At the various public meetings that have formed part of the public consultation on parishing, a number of residents have asked what will happen to the money they currently pay for being in a non-parished area.

Controversially, they were told that the charge would not be removed from their council tax bills – instead it will be absorbed into the borough council tax to go towards services for vulnerable people.

Mr Buckland said he feels strongly that this is not the right thing to do, pointing out that the elimination of the charge would, for most people, wholly offset the new parish precept to be paid by residents.

The consultation ended just over a week ago - yet barring a change of course, the council are expected to perform a remarkably rapid turnaround and release the cabinet paper with their final proposals later this week.

There have been calls by Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors for a pause to consider the proposals more fully – now Mr Buckland has said much the same.

He said: “I am worried that the projected timetable for this change is extremely speedy and suggest that more time is needed for the case to be made.”