How much it could cost to abolish Lancashire's 15 councils - and how much Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre will pay

Lancashire’s 15 main councils have set aside £30m to cover the potential cost of establishing the four new authorities that will replace them.

As part of the biggest shake-up of local government in the county for more than 50 years, Lancashire County Council and Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Burnley, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster, Pendle, Preston, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire and Wyre councils will all be abolished at the end of March 2028.

The government had already announced that each of the four local authority areas to be created in their place would be given £900,000 to support the transition to the new arrangements that it has ordered.

However, it has now emerged that the existing councils have also set up an ‘implementation reserve’ to fund the expected costs of combining all of the services provided by each council - as well as their thousands of employees - into one streamlined mega council in each patch.

The £30m cash pot is intended to ensure the new authorities are delivering safe and legal services from the moment they take charge.

Details of the reserve - and how much each existing council will be contributing - were revealed at a recent Hyndburn Council cabinet meeting.

The largest councils with the biggest budgets will be stumping up the most, meaning Lancashire County Council will foot the majority of the bill - with Blackpool Council contributing the third most, Wyre Council the sixth and Fylde Council the tenth.

The funding is likely to be used for hiring extra staff to oversee the changes and paying for consultants, public consultations, legal advice, election costs and other sundries that may emerge through the reorganisation process.

This is how much each authority will be shelling out as part of the overhaul:

• Lancashire County Council – £16.5m (55% of the total)
• Blackburn and Darwen Council – £3.3m (11%)
• Blackpool Council – £2.7m (9%)
• Preston City Council – £840k (2.8%)
• Lancaster City Council – £831k (2.8%)
• Wyre Council – £756k (2.5%)
• West Lancs Borough Council – £742k (2.5%)
• Chorley Council – £736k (2.5%)
• South Ribble Borough Council – £727k (2.4%)
• Fylde Borough Council – £621k (2.1%)
• Ribble Valley Borough Council – £488k (1.6%)
• Pendle Borough Council – £477k (1.6%)
• Burnley Council – £458k (1.5%)
• Hyndburn Borough Council – £421k (1.4%)
• Rossendale Borough Council – £402k (1.3%)

Each council will contribute their portion of the reserve in eight equal instalments every quarter until they cease to exist in 2028. The fund will then be transferred to one of the new authorities for a period of six months, after which any money remaining will be split between the four of them.

The blueprint for the new set-up - which was chosen by the government last month after it considered five options put forward by the existing councils - estimated that it would achieve “a cumulative net benefit [savings] of £194.9m, with recurring annual benefits of £81.9m from 2032/33”.