As leaders of South Hams District Council and East Devon District Council, Cllrs Julian Brazil and Paul Arnott were once among the loudest champions of the ‘1-5-4’ local government reorganisation proposal put forward by the district councils. Not anymore.

While South Hams councillors were meeting to demand the County Council release the Newton Report, Brazil and Arnott were instead at a press conference in Exeter Science Park with County Council chief executive Donna Manson. And rather than backing the 1-5-4 plan, they unveiled a new scheme: ‘New Devon’.

The 1-5-4 option would have kept Plymouth as a unitary within its current boundaries, grouped South Hams with West Devon, Torbay and Teignbridge, and placed East Devon with Exeter, Torridge, Mid Devon and North Devon. The new plan scraps that entirely. Devon’s eleven councils would be reduced to just three, with a single ‘New Devon’ unitary created by merging nine of them, while Plymouth and Torbay stay as they are.

Devon County Council would stay intact while taking over services like planning and recycling from Exeter City and the eight district councils.

And as leader and deputy leader of the County Council, Brazil and Arnott might well expect to keep those roles once ‘New Devon’ comes into being. With the new authority little more than the County Council in a fresh guise, some might even question whether fresh elections would be needed at all.

To bolster their plan, the pair claimed “expert financial and legal advice has been assessed” before the ‘New Devon’ option emerged. That advice would presumably include the findings of the Newton Report, which, as South Hams councillor John Birch told colleagues, “follows a common format of examining the financial modelling and the potential financial implications for children and adult services for different models, such as the 4-5-1 model compared to the baseline of a county unitary. This document is an important document as it contains key financial information required by this Council and other District Councils for preparing their local government reform submission to the government in November.”

Without those findings, no one can judge whether any proposal is financially viable. Each must prove that council tax revenues will be sufficient to fund vital people-based services such as adult and children’s social care, education, homelessness and public health.

“One of the reasons why this has become important,” explained South Hams councillor John McBride, “is because there is a disagreement between the district councils and the county council with regard to what is a viable proposal for unitaries.”

As Birch added, “This document has been requested not only by this Council but also by other Councils on several occasions. It has not been disclosed. No valid reason has been given as to why it should not be disclosed. So I would invite members to draw their own conclusion.”

Councillors unanimously authorised officers to force the County Council to release the Newton Report, with South Hams leader Dan Thomas and Cllr Jaqui Hodgson among those backing the move.

The County Cabinet meets on Tuesday, October 8. Will Thomas and Hodgson abandon the 1-5-4 option still preferred by their district council and instead back ‘New Devon’ and Cllr Brazil? Unless the Newton Report is produced and Brazil proves no other option is financially viable, ‘New Devon’ risks looking like the most blatant reorganisation land grab yet.