The residents of South Hams should raise a cheer of gratitude to West Devon for refusing to go along with the One Council proposal.

At the SHDC meeting to vote on the issue on October 31, my first visit to the rather grand Follaton House, I heard a number of very cogent arguments against applying to Department for Communities for approval to the proposed merger.

There was sympathy for the difficult financial situation WDBC is in but no denigration of their efforts other than questioning the planned multi-million investment in commercial property which could drag South Hams down with it.

Several Conservative councillors made very strong arguments for the merger. However, these arguments centred on denigration.

Why should they listen to the arguments against the merger? These came from the opposition and that’s all they are capable of – opposing.

Why should they take note of letter-writing “objectionables”? Need we say more?

Why should they take note that 37 out of about 45 Parish Councils objected?

Why should they take note of the four per cent who took the time to complete a survey? “No, we will listen to the silent majority (96 per cent) who trust us by their votes (and by not responding) to make key decisions on their behalf.”

And they take note of the telephone survey. Of the 4,221 total responses, somewhat less than 828 were made via a telephone survey which was claimed to be “statistically representative of the population in terms of age and gender”.

More weight was given by SHDC to this telephone survey because online and paper respondents are “self-selecting”. And, guess what? Given a chance to speak about it by phone, respondents are less negative towards the merger.

However, SHDC should – and no doubt does – realise that phone respondents do not get the chance to spend hours investigating and analysing the facts and figures around the proposal.

Council leader Cllr John Tucker was regularly in the news declaring the One Council proposal was just one of the options to bridge the funding gap. The two councils now need to work together to consider the many options

Michael Holliday

Pinwill Crescent, Ermington