As the consultation over the reorganisation of North Yorkshire's councils continues, the leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, shares his views on why the unitary model works so well.

It is now more than a decade since County Durham’s seven district councils merged with the county council to form a single unitary authority, covering a population of more than half a million.

The same change took place at the same time in Northumberland and other counties including Cornwall and Wiltshire and could also have taken in both Cumbria and North Yorkshire, so it is interesting that all this time later and under a different government, those proposals have re-emerged.

Clearly the pull of a unitary authority is a powerful one.

What are the advantages of the change? First, scale.

Simply put, an organisation covering a population of half a million or more is larger and more able to compete economically than smaller councils.

Since 2009, the unitary Durham County Council has attracted the Hitachi train plant to Newton Aycliffe above 40 rival bids.

It has hosted the birth and rapid growth of Lumiere, now the UK’s biggest light festival and more recently has attracted the construction of a new large-scale Amazon fulfilment centre built at the Integra site off the A1(M).

This is one of several major developments currently in progress as part of a huge investment plan, expected to bring 30,000 new jobs to County Durham over the next decade.

Almost certainly, none of this would have happened under the previous two-tier set-up which existed before 2009.

Indeed services at that time in County Durham’s smallest authorities such as Teesdale, then the smallest council in England, and Chester-le-Street were already severely stretched, and this was before austerity.

A second advantage is the potential for enhanced focus and efficiency.

In a completely different service area and one which affects all residents, County Durham’s waste services saw huge change following the move from two tier to unitary.

The changes included saving millions, increasing recycling rates and dramatically reducing the levels of waste sent to landfill to almost zero, while at the same time improving performance levels.

One model of reorganisation involves splitting North Yorkshire between east and west authorities

One model of reorganisation involves splitting North Yorkshire between east and west authorities

Again this was only made possible by having a single council in charge rather than the previous eight councils dividing the task between them.

A third advantage is the opportunity to create new ways of engaging with local communities.

It is sometimes argued that a large unitary council means the loss of local decision-making.

However, County Durham’s Area Action Partnerships, funded from the initial management savings of going unitary, have thrived since 2009.

They have engaged 30,000 people in their activities and supporting 5,000 projects across the county with more than £100 million of funding.

Levels of engagement are significantly higher than they had been under the previous two-tier set up and the additional support provided locally has helped sustain County Durham’s thriving and vital voluntary and community sector through some difficult times.

Of course challenges remain. The geographical position of counties, often situated next door or in the case of County Durham between major conurbations, presents a significant challenge which can be viewed through the recent history of devolution, which has tended to be designed in a city and urban-centric manner; furthermore it is unclear if counties naturally lend themselves to the presently favoured mayoral system.

Ultimately the decision on change is one for North Yorkshire and Cumbria and rightly so.

But change from two-tier to a single tier of local government has gradually but inexorably been taking place across more and more of the UK and the trend is only likely to continue.