The abolition of Oxfordshire is here...

What Greater Oxford really means for Abingdon - and why this is far more than a council boundary change

This week, the Government made one of the biggest decisions about Oxfordshire’s future in more than half a century.

Some say this week has shown the government taking part in ‘gerrymandering’ for partisan gain. I want to dial down the temperature and cool things down.

When I first walked into County Hall as a newly elected councillor in 2021, I assumed I was joining an institution that would outlast my time there. Instead, the institution itself is now being abolished.

Not Oxfordshire as a historic place, of course. The county will still exist on maps, in addresses, in societies, clubs, in people’s identities, and in the way many of us understand where we live.

But the system of local government that has governed Oxfordshire for generations is coming to an end.

Ministers have confirmed their intention to abolish Oxfordshire’s existing county and district councils and replace them with three entirely new unitary authorities. This is far more than a routine council boundary review or a bit of Whitehall tinkering. It is probably the biggest change to local government in Oxfordshire for a generation.

And if you live in Abingdon (or anywhere else, to be honest), it will affect far more than the name on your council tax bill.

For those wanting a good overview of the announcement itself and the political reactions from across Oxfordshire, I’d recommend reading the Oxford Clarion’s excellent summary alongside this article.

My aim here is something slightly different: what this actually means in practice, particularly for Abingdon.

How did we get here?

For decades, Oxfordshire has operated what is known as a two-tier system. Wherever you lived, you always came under two authorities at the same time.

Oxfordshire County Council has been responsible for the larger strategic services: highways, transport, adult social care, children’s services, SEND, libraries, public health, fire and rescue, trading standards and much more. This is where most of the money from your council tax is spent.

Meanwhile, Oxford City Council and the four district councils have looked after housing, planning, waste collection, leisure centres, environmental health and many of the everyday local services residents interact with.

The Government has decided that system should end.

Instead, councils across England are gradually being reorganised into unitary authorities: single councils responsible for delivering all local government services within their area.

In principle, I don’t think that’s an unreasonable ambition.

My inbox and social media feeds are testament to the fact that people sometimes go to the wrong councillor, not because they are foolish, but because the system is confusing. Residents shouldn’t need a flowchart to work out which council empties the bins, which one fixes the potholes, and which one deals with planning applications.

Having one organisation responsible for everything can make services simpler, clearer and, over time, potentially more efficient.

The real debate was never whether local government should change.

It was always about what the new map should look like.

Three competing visions

Oxfordshire had three competing proposals submitted to Government.

The County Council argued for One Oxfordshire: a single council covering the existing county.

Five district councils supported two councils, creating two larger authorities while keeping Oxfordshire largely together.

Oxford City Council proposed three councils:

• Greater Oxford

• Northern Oxfordshire

• Ridgeway

This week, ministers chose the City Council’s proposal.

Earlier this year, I wrote that decisions being taken elsewhere in England increasingly pointed towards this outcome. Although ministers initially appeared to favour larger unitary councils, the pattern gradually shifted towards smaller authorities centred around expanding cities and supporting future housing growth.

That prediction has, unfortunately or otherwise depending on your perspective, proved correct.

So what actually changes?

Quite a lot.

Oxfordshire County Council will disappear. Oxford City Council will disappear. Cherwell, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and West Oxfordshire District Councils will all disappear. West Berkshire Council will also be replaced as part of the wider reorganisation.

In their place will be three completely new unitary councils: Greater Oxford Council, Northern Oxfordshire Council and Ridgeway Council.

So yes, there will be fewer councils overall. But each new council will also have a much broader job than a district council does now, and a different job from the County Council. Each will combine county and district responsibilities within its own area. So it’s three biggies.

That means this is about much more than changing the signs outside council buildings.

Thousands of staff, hundreds of millions of pounds of assets, IT systems, legal responsibilities, contracts, public services, property and budgets all have to be divided up before three new councils officially come into existence.

Shadow elections are expected in May 2027, giving the new councils a year to prepare before formally taking over on 1 April 2028.

It is an enormous organisational undertaking.

So where does this leave Abingdon?

This is probably the question I’ve been asked most over the past couple of days. That shiny new slip road we’ve fought long and hard for will now be a boundary, after all….!

Abingdon has always occupied an interesting position. We’re close enough to Oxford that many people commute there, study there, shop there or rely on its hospitals, universities and cultural life. But we’re also a market town with our own identity, history and economy.

We are not a suburb of Oxford.

Under the Government’s plans, we won’t be governed alongside Oxford anymore. Instead, Abingdon becomes part of Ridgeway Council, stretching from the northern edge of the Vale through Didcot, Wantage and Grove, Henley and Wallingford, across to Newbury and Hungerford in West Berkshire.

There is, of course, a historical wrinkle here. Abingdon used to be part of Berkshire before the local government changes of the 1970s moved it into Oxfordshire. So in one sense, being linked administratively with Berkshire again is not completely without historical precedent.

But it would still be a major modern change.

For the past half-century, Abingdon has been governed as part of Oxfordshire. Our transport links, county services, political relationships and local identity have all developed within that framework. Moving into a Ridgeway authority with West Berkshire may echo an older history, but it creates a very different set of questions for the town we are today.

In one sense, Ridgeway could be an authority centred around market towns and rural communities rather than one dominated by Oxford itself. Some people will welcome that.

Others will wonder whether Abingdon risks sitting on the edge of a council whose geography stretches deep into Berkshire. Lucky I’ve visitied Newbury recently so at least I know how to find it…..

Either way, it marks a significant change. Abingdon will effectively become the northern edge of a new council looking south and west, rather than one town within a county-wide Oxfordshire authority.

This is your future. As submitted by Oxford City Council and accepted by the government.

That matters for transport. It matters for planning. It matters for economic development. It matters for how places like Abingdon, Didcot, Culham and Harwell relate to Oxford. It matters for whether residents feel their council understands the places they live.

At the same time, Oxford itself will expand beyond its current boundaries to include surrounding communities including Wootton, Kennington, Appleton, Farmoor, Culham and others, alongside significant areas of Green Belt. There’s an interactive map with their submission if you want to zoom in and find your vilage

Whether you see that as sensible planning for Oxford’s future growth or an unnecessary expansion of the city is ultimately a political judgement.

What is clear is that the Government has prioritised Oxford’s future expansion as a central part of this reorganisation.

The questions we now need answering

The decision may have been made, but many practical questions haven’t.

Over the next two years, residents deserve clear answers to issues like these:

• Will existing county-wide schemes, such as congestion charge permits, simply transfer to Ridgeway Council or be administered differently?

• How will highways be managed when roads crossing council boundaries involve three separate highway authorities?

• What happens to county-wide transport planning for buses, rail, active travel and major road projects?

• How will strategic planning work across Science Vale, Culham, Harwell and Oxford when they sit within different councils?

• How will health responsibilities be organised?

• How will county-wide partnerships with Thames Valley Police, the NHS and Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue adapt?

• What will happen to existing council offices, depots and staff?

• How will services that currently operate across the whole county avoid becoming fragmented?

• Will Abingdon residents feel decisions are still being made locally?

• How do we make sure the transition itself does not distract from day-to-day service delivery?

Residents will also understandably want reassurance about West Berkshire’s financial position. Given its recent reliance on Exceptional Financial Support, including £20m for 2025/26 and £30m for 2026/27, there needs to be absolute clarity about what liabilities, borrowing and financial risks Ridgeway Council would inherit, and how residents in the Vale and South Oxfordshire would be protected from simply absorbing someone else’s problems

There is also a wider devolution question sitting behind all of this. As I wrote recently, Oxfordshire has already been pulled into a broader debate about strategic authorities, combined arrangements and the Government’s preferred geography across Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Swindon. Click the link below to read that.

Oxfordshire Probably Isn’t Getting an Elected Mayor

Reorganising our councils into three new unitaries does not remove that question. If anything, it makes it more important to understand who will be responsible for the big strategic decisions that sit above any one council.

Some of these questions may have relatively straightforward answers. Others won’t.

But these are exactly the issues that now need to move from political debate to practical planning.

Spare a thought for the people who work in our councils

It’s also worth remembering that behind all the maps and political arguments are thousands of council employees who simply come to work each day to serve their communities.

This announcement creates an enormous amount of uncertainty for many of them.

Over the next two years, they’ll be wondering where they’ll work, who they’ll work for, whether their team will still exist, who their manager will be, whether they’ll need to move offices, or even whether they’ll still have the same job at all.

Ironically, the very people who now have to deliver one of the biggest reorganisations in Oxfordshire’s history are the same people living through that uncertainty themselves.

Whatever your view of the Government’s decision, I hope we recognise the professionalism of the staff who will now be asked to keep day-to-day services running while simultaneously building three entirely new councils from the ground up.

There are genuine opportunities

It would be wrong to pretend the concept of a unitary is entirely negative.

Unitary councils can absolutely work well. Residents have one council to contact. Housing, planning, highways and many other services sit under one roof rather than being split across different organisations.

There is potential to remove duplication and simplify decision-making. That is why local government reorganisation has supporters across the political spectrum.

I don’t oppose unitary government as a principle.

My concern isn’t unitary government.

It’s this particular map.

Having served at County Hall, I’ve seen how integrated many county-wide services have become.

Adult social care. Children’s services. SEND. Public health. Emergency planning. Highways.

These don’t naturally stop at district boundaries.

The new arrangements mean creating three adult social care departments instead of one. Three children’s services departments. Three public health teams. Three highway authorities.

Three organisations will all need to coordinate on services that residents rightly expect to feel seamless.

Can it be done? Absolutely.

Will it be easy? Not remotely.

Behind the scenes, this will be one of the most complicated organisational changes Oxfordshire has ever attempted.

Local democracy is changing too

One aspect that has received surprisingly little attention is what this means for councillors themselves.

The councils may become fewer. The work certainly won’t.

If anything, councillors are likely to find themselves representing larger populations across larger geographical areas while dealing with a wider range of responsibilities (unless they already sat on the two councils separately…..glutton for punishment).

That almost inevitably means:

• more casework

• more meetings

• more travelling

• more strategic decision-making

• larger budgets

• bigger organisations to scrutinise

• more time needed to understand services that are currently split between different councils

For many of us, council work already happens in the evenings, early mornings, weekends and annual leave alongside full-time jobs and family life.

That is not a complaint. It is the nature of local government.

But it does matter.

Local government has always depended on people from all walks of life giving up their spare time to represent their communities. If the role becomes significantly larger and more demanding, there is a genuine risk that fewer working-age people, parents, carers and those with full-time careers will feel able to stand for election.

That wouldn’t be healthy for local democracy.

Like every existing county councillor, I’ll also have decisions to make over the coming months about whether to seek election to one of the new authorities. Many district councillors will be thinking exactly the same.

Whatever each of us decides personally, I hope these new councils continue to attract people from every background rather than becoming something only those with significant free time can realistically do.

What doesn’t change?

Your bins will still be collected. Roads will still be repaired. Planning applications will continue to be processed. Libraries will still open. Children will still go to school.

For most residents, the next two years should simply be a period of transition while the new organisations are built.

This is not a cliff edge.

It’s a long and incredibly complicated handover, for now.

My view

Whether you supported One Oxfordshire, two councils or Greater Oxford, one thing is now beyond doubt.

The county we’ve all known is coming to an end.

The Oxfordshire that existed yesterday won’t exist in the same form in two years’ time. In its place will be three entirely new councils trying to build new identities, new organisations and new ways of working.

I remain unconvinced that this is the best map.

I think combining county and district responsibilities into unitary councils could well produce a simpler and more efficient system over time.

But I remain sceptical that splitting county-wide services into three separate organisations is the right way to achieve that, particularly when the Government’s own original emphasis appeared to be on scale, efficiency and resilience.

That debate, however, is now largely over.

The much more important challenge is making sure the new councils deliver better services, stronger local democracy and good value for taxpayers.

Because however the lines are drawn on a map, residents won’t judge this reorganisation by ministerial announcements or organisational charts.

They’ll judge it by whether roads are repaired, vulnerable people are looked after, planning decisions make sense and local voices are still heard.

That’s the real test, and maybe the one that really matters.

(Please do let me know of any more questions I should add to my list for the coming year - thank you!)