Guest columnist: Could our county council be abolished?

Since the proposal to create a mayor for Lincolnshire in George Osborne's last budget statement as chancellor there has been a flurry of ideas for changing our local government set-up.

I expressed my extreme wariness at the then-chancellor’s specific proposal, viewing it as setting the stage for abolishing our district councils and combining them into a single authority for all of Lincolnshire.

Local government is vitally important in delivering so many of our services, and the fact remains that West Lindsey Council – while far from perfect – does a largely very good job.

Our district councillors are much closer to the voters who represent them than our county councillors are, as of course they must be since they are elected for a smaller patch that is easier to cover.

I am not totally opposed to changing our current system of local government but I have made very clear that any changes should proceed only through the consent of the existing bodies.

Lincolnshire is a very large county, and only part of it is covered by the county council’s area.

When county councils were first invented in the 19th Century, it was immediately understood that our country was too large to be covered by a single one.