Speaking on Politics South West on 12 January Plymouth City Council Leader Tudor Evans said of Plymouth: ‘We drive growth. And we must exist. But these proposals threaten our existence unless we can take in extra population to Plymouth.’

A few days earlier on 9 January the Leader of Torbay Council David Thomas had echoed his words, telling his colleagues at an Extraordinary Cabinet Meeting: ‘The will be no more small unitaries. So we will be required to have a larger sized Torbay unitary, whatever that may look like. Certainly a unitary of just over 145,000 residents is and will be considered too small.’

Both were responding to the government’s English Devolution White Paper, published immediately before Christmas on 16 December.

In that Paper the government had made it clear that for a council to enjoy unitary status, and therefore avoid being subsumed in to a larger neighbour, it would have to be of ‘the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks. For most areas this will mean creating councils with a population of 500,000 or more’.

Both Torbay, and Plymouth with a population of just under 265,000, fall far short of that requirement.

The answer, explained Patrick Nicholson, the leader of the Independents on Plymouth City Council, ‘has to be a boundary extension of some description.’

‘How can it be right that the majority of the new town of Sherford is in the South Hams?’, he went on to demand of his fellow councillors at their meeting on 9 January.

‘If you were to survey those people the majority of them are coming from Plymouth,’ he continued. ‘They depend on Plymouth. They come to shop in Plymstock, Plympton and Plymouth. So it makes no sense moving forward for the future to have local government centred on the current boundary.

‘We’re already working under a joint local plan arrangement that takes in to account the hinterland effectively on the periphery of Plymouth’, he added. ‘So we have those working relationships and they should be recognised in the boundary of the city of Plymouth.’

Nor is it only some other parts of the South Hams such as Woolwell and Roborough that Plymouth is likely to want to annexe as well. Much if not all of West Devon could also be absorbed.

Similarly Councillor Thomas, although ‘not proposing any lines on maps’, believes an expanded Torbay should be based on such factors as ‘travel to work routes, potential growth areas, housing, accommodation, access to healthcare, etc, to name but a few.’

In other words, as his colleague Darren Cowell, the leader of the Independent Group on his Council suggested: ‘It could be we look at the boundaries of the South Devon Healthcare Primary Trust.’

And were that to be the outcome, Torbay would find itself taking in parts of Teignbridge and much of the South Hams, including Totnes, Dartmouth, Brixham, Ashburton, Dawlish, Teignmouth, Newton Abbot and the surrounding area.

Or as Councillor Thomas told Spotlight: ‘I can see something maybe not with the name of Torbay, maybe something more like South Devon.’

Using the same criterion, were the city of Plymouth to encompass the area served by University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, then its boundaries could be extended to encompass Tavistock to the north, parts of Cornwall to the west, and Ivybridge, South Brent and Kingsbridge to the east.

Should both Torbay and Plymouth succeed in their objective, nothing would be left of the South Hams, while residents here would find themselves governed by, and very much subordinate to the interests of those two conurbations.

Significantly Councillor Evans made the point: ‘we need to make a powerful case for our own existence, and a powerful case that will resist any threat to us being put out of business as a council and subsumed in to a more rural authority.’

However he would appear totally unconcerned about whether the residents of the South Hams might in any way be concerned about being subsumed in to a more urban authority.

Noticeably neither Councillor Evans nor Councillor Thomas would appear to have any objective other than to protect their own interests and existence. That they can only do so at the expense of others comprises no part of their calculations. And it is hard to see what, if any benefits their planned land grabs will offer the residents of the South Hams.

Indeed the arrogance of some of their colleagues is unbelievable. Take for example the words of the Deputy Leader of Torbay Council Chris Lewis: ‘We’ve given prime examples of where we’ve done such a good job. Wouldn’t it be great if Torbay could teach the rest of Devon how they should be doing it?

‘We want to lead from the front,’ he continued, adding ‘There are other areas where we desperately need to work with our neighbours – housing 940 homes a year’ (Torbay’s new target). ‘We’re only historically’ (building) ‘250, 300’ (homes each year). ‘We need to work with places like Teignbridge, South Hams and others to be able to achieve those targets, otherwise the whole of Torbay will be built on. And that’s what we can’t allow to happen…. Wouldn’t it be great if we were able to bring our neighbours in to be part of Torbay unitary and teach them how they should be doing the job. That’s what we’ve got to do.’

For Councillor Lewis building on the South Hams appears his solution to meeting Torbay’s housing targets, an idea that also appears to appeal to Councillor Tudor. ‘We’ve got a tight boundary as a city’ he told his colleagues. ‘You can see the housing on one side and empty fields on the other.’

The fact that what currently remains the South Hams has also to find sufficient land to accommodate more than 900 new homes each year on its own account is something neither man has bothered to consider.

Regrettably the government has decreed that South Hams District Council is to disappear. We are to be absorbed in to one or more of our larger neighbours whether we like it or not. Of course, a consultation is promised. But, as with their proposed reforms to the planning system, any objections to their intended changes, no matter how well-reasoned, will simply be ignored.

Consequently, rather than decisions affecting our local residents continuing to be taken by our locally elected representatives they will be taken by those primarily beholden to either the existing residents of Plymouth or Torbay. Politicians of all persuasions are invariably focused on trying to please as many people as possible, and there are many more votes to be found on the streets of Plymouth, Torquay and Paignton than there are in either Kingsbridge, Dartmouth, Totnes or Ivybridge, let alone anywhere else in the South Hams for that matter.

And, as with such issues as to where new housing should go, that which benefits the residents of Torbay and Plymouth is unlikely to benefit the residents of the South Hams.

Devolution is meant to mean ‘the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration’. That is hardly the case here. And trying to make such profound and consequential changes at such haste will almost certainly end up proving an expensive and unmitigated disaster.