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\nLocal government in Oxfordshire currently operates under a two-tier system. Four district councils and one city council manage services such as planning and waste collection, while Oxfordshire County Council oversees education and roads. However, the government is encouraging the creation of unitary authorities \u2014 one-tier councils that combine these responsibilities. <\/p>\n
On February 24, 2025, South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils wrote to West Berkshire Council, proposing a forum to explore the possibility of a new unitary authority. This follows public meetings where the idea received positive feedback.<\/p>\n
At the same time, discussions are ongoing with other Oxfordshire councils about an alternative single county-wide unitary authority. West Berkshire are already a unitary council but not big enough. They will consider the Vale and South option as well as the option of combining with other Berkshire unitary councils.<\/p>\n
Some Abingdon residents could well welcome this proposal, as it could revive historical ties to Berkshire. The Vale of White Horse was North Berkshire until 1974.<\/p>\n
Typically, new unitary councils should serve populations of at least 500,000.<\/p>\n
West Berkshire: 161,448 (2021) The total population will have increased in the four years to 2025 but it would need to increase by almost 10% to be 500,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Local government in Oxfordshire currently operates under a two-tier system. Four district councils and one city council manage services such as planning and waste collection, while Oxfordshire County Council oversees education and roads. However, the government is encouraging the creation of unitary authorities \u2014 one-tier councils that combine these responsibilities. On February 24, 2025, South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nVale of White Horse: 138,913 (2021)
\nSouth Oxfordshire: 151,820 (2021)
\nTotal population: 452,181 (2021)<\/strong><\/p>\n