Councillor calls for his council to be abolished and merged into North Yorkshire because 'it's not a real area'

Coun Dr Tristan Learoyd, who represents St Germains Ward on Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC), has said the council is “too small to cope” with increased demand on children’s services, which are stretching already tight budgets.

Councils across the UK have seen unprecedented increase in demand on children’s services since 2020, causing many to use financial reserves to allow themselves to provide core services for constituents.

In a survey of local authorities published earlier this year by the Local Government Information Unit, more than half said they would have to declare effective bankruptcy if their budgets were not increased by central government. The report said “children’s social care is by far the most urgent short-term pressure [facing councils], and adults and children’s social care together make up the most serious long-term pressure.”

Coun Learoyd has suggested merging RCBC’s northerly and western wards with Middlesbrough Council to create a new Teesside authority, with the southern and coastal wards becoming part of North Yorkshire.

Council leader, Labour’s Alec Brown, told The Yorkshire Post he thought Coun Learoyd was “just hunting for press.”

The merger of RCBC with Middlesbrough and North Yorkshire councils “would be a detriment to the people of Redcar and Cleveland,” he added.

“The issue in Redcar and Cleveland,” countered Coun Learoyd, “is that it’s not a real area. It’s a part of North Yorkshire. It’s very rural, coastal, typical North Yorkshire until you get to Redcar. There’s a chunk of Middlesbrough that was thrown in for good measure for political reasons when the old County Cleveland was dissolved.”

Coun Learoyd argues the demands on councils of residents in places like Eston, which is an urban expanse to the east of Middlesbrough, is different to those of residents in Marske or Loftus, which he says “is basically North Yorkshire” and people are “more bothered about cutting grass and roads… and tourism.

“The problem is it’s never going to function,” he adds, “no matter how much money you give it, because the money is going to be sucked into one particular area where you have all this poverty.

“The ideal situation would be to put places like Marske and Loftus into North Yorkshire and take the rest and put it into Middlesbrough.”

In March Middlesbrough Council was granted emergency permission by central government to borrow an additional £13.4m to avoid having to effectively declare itself bankrupt, largely as a result of massive increased costs for children’s social care.

Coun Brown said merging the councils would lead to “already overstretched services having to serve more people.

“Demand doesn’t diminish when you stretch provision even more thinly,” he said.

He added that the additional expenditure of a new review of local authority provision could not be justified in light of the 2018 boundary review of Redcar and Cleveland.

“There’s a new government and we’re unsure of any future settlements they might provide local councils,” said Coun Brown. “Any talk of dissolving the council before this has even happened is absurd.

“I won’t advocate for the public of Redcar and Cleveland not to be represented,” he said.