Bedfordshire CC will now have to wait to find out if its legal challenge to Bedford BC's unitary status has been successful. The county council brought its case, which is expected to cost it £75,000, before the High Court on Friday, but judge Sir Robin Auld reserved his judgement for a later date. James Goudie QC, representing Bedfordshire CC, said Bedford BC's affordability plans were ‘at best, a bit wobbly'. Mr Goudie said the minister ignored her own criteria by first rejecting a bid by Mid Bedfordshire DC and South Bedfordshire DC, and then inviting them to send more plans, once she had been ‘minded' to give Bedford BC unitary status. ‘What the secretary of state did was to allow the two districts' corpse to be resurrected and allow the borough to limp on,' he told the court. Richard McManus QC, representing the CLG, said all the county council wanted to do was ‘eliminate a rival proposal' on a ‘technical knockout'. Mr McManus said Ms Blears was still looking at the options. ‘What this challenge seems to do is limit the public choices which are open to the secretary of state,' he added. Parliament has now approved plans to create the new unitaries in Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire and Wiltshire. ‘This is inevitably an unsettling time, but I expect all authorities involved to lend their weight now to delivery through locally-led implementation executives,' said local government minister, John Healey. District and county councillors on Shropshire's implementation executive will meet officially for the first time on Friday (29 February). Councillors representing Ellesmere Port and Neston BC, Cheshire CC and Vale Royal BC, met together last week for the first joint committee for the new west Cheshire unitary.
