PLANS to drastically reorganise councils in Wales will have a seriously damaging impact on public services, it has been claimed.

The claims were made at a meeting of the Welsh Assembly’s Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee yesterday, Wednesday, where AMs discussed the draft Local Government (Wales) Bill, which proposes merging the 22 local authorities in the country into eight or nine larger councils, including a so-called ‘Super Gwent’ encompassing Newport, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen and Monmouthshire.

Speaking at the meeting Conservative representative on the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) Cllr Phil Murphy said, as a result of the cutbacks to funding in recent years, local authorities would be forced to cut back on vital services to afford to pay for the project.

“There is no doubt if this comes off and the local authorities have to pay for it front line services will suffer,” he said.

Although it has been predicted the project could save £650 million over ten years, the initial cost to the taxpayer could be as high as £246 million – a bill Cllr Murphy said authorities would find it impossible to pay.

“I don’t see local authorities meeting the costs at all,” he said.

“It’s absolutely impossible

“There is absolutely no room for paying for additional restructuring.”

Although it has been previously predicted up to 1,900 administration staff could lose their jobs if the plans go ahead, WLGA chief executive Steve Thomas said he believed this figure was “an underestimate”.

The Welsh Government’s public services minister Leighton Andrews also appeared before yesterday’s committee meeting, where he said he was “very confident” councils would be able to meet the costs of the reorganisation.

But Labour AM for Blaenau Gwent said he was concerned about what he claimed was “a Titanic lack of agreement” around the overall structure councils in Wales will take.

Mr Andrews agreed this was the case, but said now was the time for the Welsh Government to take action and forge ahead with the project.

“The reality is everyone can agree on local government reorganisation, but no one can agree what it will look like,” he said.

“That is not a sustainable position.

“People need to grow up, to put it bluntly.

“We have given every opportunity to local government to agree on the map – they haven’t done that, so we as the National Assembly need to legislate.”

It is hoped the bill, which will also see the number of councillors across Wales as a whole slashed from 1,250 to between 700 and 900, will get Royal assent in summer 2017, with the new structure to come into place in 2020.

A consultation into the bill – which also includes provision allowing members of the public to tweet and blog from council meetings – closes on Monday, February 15. To take part visit gov.wales.