SO now we know. Taunton Deane Borough Council is dissolved and so is West Somerset District Council. They are no more. This is the end. The parrot is dead!

When elected in 2015, the dissolution of the TDBC nor WSDC was not in my manifesto nor in anyone else’s or in any of the Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour or Independents. So why weren’t the views of those who elected us asked to vote in some form of referendum whether this is what they wanted?

Words fail me to describe the inadequacy of the former leader of his arguments and his failure to understand the depth of feeling there is about the politics of this shabby merger, done under force majeure to satisfy his Tory political masters in Downing Street. 

This was not about the Transformation or Business Case or savings – as they are none - this was about the future of Taunton Deane in all its imperfections and its people both residents and staff.

Whatever happened to the Showstoppers when this was first considered back in 2015 which included sovereignty of the decision-making process of TDBC first and foremost?

That is what we were promised and what we witnessed last night was the complete and final abrogation of that promise behind a smokescreen of thinly disguised gerrymandering of the boundaries, the ruthless dismantling of local government and the continuation of the decline of Taunton as the County Town of Somerset.

What sense of pride did the Leader have in leading TDBC over the past seven years while he witnessed the movement to Bridgwater of the Police Services and of the takeover of Somerset College of Arts and Technology by Bridgwater College and the sale of the livestock market to Bridgwater too? 

Somerset County Gazette:
GO-AHEAD: Sajid Javid has approved the merger plan

In addition, he has reduced the Brewhouse Theatre to a pale shadow of itself, struggling to maintain its status as a cultural force in the region never mind its own place locally whilst being so far from attaining its longer-term aspirations. (The only achievement I can attribute to him of late is the record of having the most sleeping rough people in all the towns of Somerset).

Combine this with nothing to show over the past 10 years for any progress on key sites in Taunton such as Firepool, Coal Orchard and the waste of money on our own council offices, Taunton Deane’s financial woes were self-inflicted a result of the leader’s inexplicable obsession to merge with West Somerset, taking over their insolvency problems and forcing unnecessary expenditure on both councils to align their operations.

Then, you begin to understand why he is keen to resort to this underhand method of connivance to maintain power at any price.
When you add to this the increases in Council Tax across the county (which includes the county council), supporting lifestyles for senior officers in excess of what the Prime Minister herself earns, then you will understand why I opposed this merger.

What is particularly galling is that even after the successful implementation of the sharing of services to reduce costs introduced in 2013, the leader chose - two years later - to ignore the option prepared by the officers that showed Taunton Deane could have survived much more comfortably if it had not unilaterally decided to shoulder the debts of the failing WSDC.

TDBC could have gone it alone quite comfortably at the time but we eschewed that regrettably to allow ourselves to be sucked into a downward vortex of debt incurred by WSDC and it is basically leading to the demise of everything that TDBC has ever stood for so proudly in the past. 

“Pay more and get less” is what Taunton Deane taxpayers are going to suffer as a result of this preposterous Tory measure and I want no part of it. It is a sad end to a council which I have served for 27 of the past 31 years. 

(FORMER) COUNCILLOR JEFFERSON HORSLEY
The Avenue