A bold proposal to merge four Southland councils has gone ahead a little more slowly than its instigator had hoped.

In August, Southland District Mayor Rob Scott shared his vision to merge the region’s four councils into two unitary authorities: one district-based and one citizen-based.

The cost-saving proposal was met with mixed reactions from mayors and councillors, as well as sharp criticism from a local government expert.

On August 26, district councilors approved staff gathering more information to file a proposal with the Local Government Commission.

This week, Mr Scott said there had been no concrete results, but hinted that work was underway behind the scenes.

“We’re just working through what’s involved in the process and between BAU. [business as usual]Which has been incredibly busy, so it’s been a bit of a whirlwind.

“Obviously, we committed some funds from this last council meeting and we will dedicate a resource to working through that. We probably haven’t progressed as quickly as I would have liked.”

Mr Scott said he did not want the proposal to “sit on the shelf”, but there might be no action before Christmas.

He believed that the region was too heavily governed for its population of 100,000 to save at least $10 million a year by joining forces.

Three other Southland councils were contacted this week to find out what progress had been made with the district council’s idea.

Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark said the cost savings and shared services would not be fully realized unless all councils shared accommodation – something he believed the district council would oppose. has been

“I would personally support a single unitary authority, but other members of the Invercargill City Council support a position of two unitary authorities which could lead to a single unitary position in 10 to 15 years,” he said. .

He said that because of the Local Government Commission process, any results were still four or five years away.

Environment Southland chairman Nicole Hurrell said it was time to start with a “blank page” and look at things differently with local government.

“There’s a lot of duplication, and there’s a lot of areas that have traditionally been done by one institution or another, where it would make sense to bring people together.”

Similarly for Mr Clarke, Mr Horrell felt shared accommodation was a good idea.

Gore District Mayor Ben Bell said his council had not been approached by the district council about its proposal.

■LDR is local body journalism supported by RNZ and NZ On Air.