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Several councils due to receive ministerial decisions on their local government reorganisation proposals tomorrow have been preparing for potential legal challenges, The MJ understands.Legal challenges from Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Sussex and Devon have been privately discussed if decisions fail to go their way.Devon CC is poised to judicially review any plans to expand either Exeter or Plymouth due to deliverability concerns.The county's Lib Dem leader Cllr Julian Brazil called on the Government to scrap its restructuring of councils across England, arguing the £1.5bn cost of the policy should instead be put towards tackling youth unemployment and improving essential services.Speaking at the Local Government Association's annual conference last week, Brazil fumed: ‘When decisions are being taken that are quite clearly political, it's quite frustrating. We are wasting money rearranging the deckchairs.'One senior Devon source added: ‘I think this is going to get JRed into the next century. It has to be stopped.'A string of counties – particularly those now led by Reform UK – and several districts have threatened legal action over reorganisation decisions already made by ministers, including Portsmouth City Council, and Suffolk, Norfolk, Hampshire and Essex CCs.The Tories this week accused the Government of attempting to gerrymander local democracy by opting for proposals they claimed were most likely to favour Labour at the ballot box.Shadow local government secretary Sir James Cleverly claimed Labour had no mandate for reorganisation because it was not in the party's manifesto and called on next Prime Minister Andy Burnham to ‘abandon Keir Starmer's top-down approach'.However, it is believed civil servants are ‘relatively confident' reorganisation will continue to be a key plank of the Labour administration under a Burnham premiership.Cabinet secretary Dame Antonia Romeo had published advice banning major policy announcements or spending commitments before Makerfield MP Burnham's entry into Downing Street next week, but the next wave of reorganisation decisions will be announced in Parliament tomorrow. It is understood Burnham's team privately gave its approval for reorganisation to go ahead.Interim permanent secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Will Garton, has acknowledged how ‘tough' reorganisation was ‘for those of you in thick of it' but insisted Whitehall was ‘confident we're doing right thing'.He said: ‘Reorganisation I know it's difficult, I know it's hard, I know it's uncertain, I know there are risks, but I think it's the right thing to do.‘Doing local government reorganisation at pace is the right thing to do because otherwise it would go on forever.‘Not everywhere is Manchester but I think it is an inherent benefit that the social care authority is also responsible for planning.'Another senior Whitehall insider said: ‘Once you've started it, I think the view is that you push on. We are still keen to go with the timetable as planned. Civil servants are relatively confident local government reorganisation will be a key plank of the new administration.‘We were always clear judicial reviews would happen. Ministers expected that.'However, civil servants have delayed responding to a consultation on spatial development strategies (SDS) in which the Government challenged areas to come up with ‘appropriate geographies', viewed as paving the way for strategic authorities.Garton said: ‘We have to give new ministers the chance to look at [the SDS response]. I'm as anxious as anyone to get it out.'

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POLICY AND POLITICS

Legal shadow looms over reorganisation decision day

By Dan Peters | 15 July 2026

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