The plan has been criticised for potentially putting services around adult social care, children’s services, public health, Send and highways under ‘high risk’
Mar 30, 2026
Jane Moore, chief executive of the county council. Photograph: LDRS
This story was written by the local democracy reporting service (LDRS), a BBC-funded scheme to improve the coverage of issues relating to local democracy. The Leicester Gazette has been a partner in the scheme since March 2024, and so receives some stories as part of it.
A top boss on Leicestershire County Council has claimed proposals for local government reorganisation (LGR) could be “disruptive” and “high risk” while “strongly opposing” an expansion of city borders.
County council leaders and cabinet members met on Tuesday 24 March, to discuss future LGR plans, including responding to other council proposals in the city and across Leicestershire.
Three proposals are planned for Leicestershire, with the county council’s preferred option being a single Leicestershire authority and a single Leicester city authority, with no city expansion.
Another proposal, called North, City, South, would create a northern Leicestershire council with Rutland, a city council, and a south Leicestershire council. This proposal is supported by seven district and borough councils and Rutland County Council.
The third proposal for LGR would see two councils, Leicester and Leicestershire, but would expand the city boundary.
During the meeting, Jane Moore, chief executive for Leicestershire County Council, said its preferred choice “is the simplest, lowest risk and most deliverable option”.
She added: “It avoids unnecessary boundary change, avoids service disaggregation and enables a safe and legal transition to a new council on day one”.
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Councillors at the authority’s scrutiny commission “expressed strong support” for the two-authority model without any city expansion, according to the chief executive and said that other proposed models would require “complex boundary changes, greater cost, longer timescales and higher service risks”.
She said that the county council did not support the North, City, South proposal and that while the council “supported devolution and simpler governance”, she said that it was “not compliant with scale guidance” and that it “couldn’t see the evidence around economic geographies” and the plan was “financially overstated”.
Moore also said the plan “carried high risk” due to “unnecessary” service separation around adult social care, children’s services, public health, Send and highways.
The plan would also “create a strong risk to disruption and delayed devolution”.
Regarding the city expansion model, Moore said the council supported the two-unitary model but “strongly opposes” the planned expansion.
She said that the evidence for expansion was “just not clear” and would be “disruptive to services and governance” and would “undermine” the remaining county area.
Reform council leader Dan Harrison said its preferred plans were the “simplest and lowest risk” option. He also said the city’s planned expansion would “introduce complexities, higher cost and greater risk”.
The government is currently running a consultation for Leicester and Leicestershire residents over their preferred plans, which ends on Thursday, 26 March.
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