New North Yorkshire authority would lose vital knowledge - Yorkshire Post Letters

The revised information in the letter from Coun Paul Andrews indicates the true cost of the local authorities reorganisation in North Yorkshire (The Yorkshire Post, November 2).

Many of the seven local authorities will have been stringent in keeping money in reserves to cover items like storms and other winter emergencies and this will be absorbed into a central budget by the administrators of the new authority, and it is likely that it will not be spent locally.

The revised cost of £38m (double the original estimate) in set-up cost is a total waste of residents’ money and should be spent on providing direct services or off-set the adult social care requirements rather than spending on internal administration and staff redundancies.

There are bound to be staff deductions as there will be duplication of roles in each of the existing local authorities. But what the new local authority leader will be losing is local knowledge from dedicated staff, which will be proven in time, to be unforgivable to residents as these officials know the district.

This has happened in the East Riding of Yorkshire where areas like Holderness do not get a fair share of the budget compared to Beverley and Bridlington.