All change for Oxfordshire and West Berkshire councils

Hot on the heels of plans for a new Thames Valley mayor, the government has now approved proposals to scrap a number of Oxfordshire and Berkshire councils.

It means the authority you pay your council tax bill to and whose refuse collectors take your rubbish away may change from the one you are currently used to.

The government has said this will save money and improve services for residents.

Some council have also welcomed the proposed changes, which would see three new unitary authorities created, but others have called the decision "a disaster".

A unitary is a single tier of local government that handles all local public services, instead of splitting duties between two levels.

Let's start with West Berkshire Council and two of its near neighbours.

The Berkshire council will cease to exist, as will the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire councils, all three merging to create one new authority, Ridgeway Council.

Jeff Brooks is the leader of West Berkshire Council, and he believes having a bigger organisation will help everyone.

"We don't want to be a huge council but we're not the right size," he said.

"We'll now have bigger departments appropriately sized, and they'll have more capacity. That's a major step forward for our residents."

In Oxford the existing city council area will expand, both in terms of geography and power.

It will absorb areas like Kidlington, Wheatley and Berinsfield, bringing the population up to 240,000 people.

Susan Brown, who is the leader of the existing Oxford City Council, said the plan was about "building the homes we desperately need for residents".

"This is the best way of doing that, building them near the city, where people want to be, the homes are sustainable and the jobs are there to support people," she said.

With 265,000 people, the Northern Oxfordshire Council will cover most of the old Cherwell and west Oxfordshire patch, excluding the villages now in the Greater Oxford area.

The government says the councils and their local MPs will now have approximately three weeks to digest the news and confirm they want to go ahead with the proposals.

Under the changes Oxfordshire County Council would be scrapped, and its leader Tim Bearder is critical of the plan.

"Services we currently provide across the whole county will now be split into three," he said.

"Anybody can see that increases costs and complexity which is the opposite aim to what local government reorganisation was meant to do."

He said he and his colleagues were considering their next move, which could involve legal action.

If the plans are agreed then elections for the new authorities would take place in 2028 with the new councils coming into being a year later.