AN opinion poll shows residents in Somerset and the rest of the South-West are turned off by the idea of a regional assembly, Taunton MP Adrian Flook claimed this week.
Mr Flook said: "I'm not surprised by this poll, which is a major blow to John Prescott and the Government.
"Less than one in five even know they live in an area dreamt up by the European Union, and the more people know about the proposals for devolved assemblies the less enthusiasm they have for them.
"They sound like a nice local idea, but more and more people now see them as merely a bureaucrats' charter to waste even more of our money without adding anything to the quality of our lives.
"I've been saying since we launched the Save Our Somerset campaign in 2002 that elected regional assemblies would undermine local government and lead to more centralisation within regions.
"This would be really bad news for Taunton as under the Government's plans the county council would have to go, to be replaced by bureaucrats in Exeter or Bristol."
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