DEVON’S district councils are expecting to find out in March how long they have left to live.

The government controversially paused and then “withdrew” plans to shake up the structure of local government across the country.

The original plan was to sweep away all district councils along with Devon County Council, to be replaced by four large unitary authorities. One would be an expanded Plymouth, another an expanded Exeter and another an expanded Torbay. The fourth would be made up of the remainder of Devon not included in the expansions.

But the proposals met with fury from the county and district councils, with the threat of a judicial review being made by Devon County Council, endorsed by the districts.

The government responded by pausing the reorganisation, saying it had listened to legal advice. Now it has “withdrawn” the four-council proposal for Devon, with no guarantee of when – if at all – it will be restarted.

Council leaders believe this is an opportunity for the re-organised boundaries to be “tweaked”, for instance in the village of Berry Pomeroy, which could find itself split between two unitary councils.

At the same time the government has reiterated its support for a network of strategic elected mayors across the country. Devon and Torbay already work together as a Combined County Authority, and when Plymouth joins them next year it is widely expected that this will create a structure which could support a mayor.

Local councils have already spent millions of pounds preparing for the “withdrawn” re-organisation and are now waiting for confirmation of the next steps.

Teignbridge District Council Chief Executive Phil Shears said he was expecting an answer from the government by the end of March, and the government’s four-unitaries strategy for Devon might not change.