A delegation of Leicestershire MPs, council leaders and campaigners delivered petitions carrying more than 40,000 signatures to No 10 Downing Street on Monday, urging Prime Minister Andy Burnham to abandon plans to expand Leicester into large parts of the surrounding county.
The hand-in came a week after the government paused its local government reorganisation programme, including the Leicester and Leicestershire scheme, pending a legal review. For campaigners, the pause was evidence that pressure was having an effect. But it was not enough. They want the expansion scrapped altogether.
Under the plans, confirmed by the government in July, the ten existing councils serving Leicestershire and Rutland will be dissolved and replaced with two unitary authorities from April 2028. An enlarged Leicester council would absorb Oadby, Wigston, Blaby, Syston and Birstall, all currently outside the city boundary. The rest of Leicestershire and Rutland would be governed by a single new authority.
Critics call it a land grab. The government calls it local government reorganisation. What residents did not get was a direct vote on the proposed boundaries.
The petitions were launched by Conservative MPs Alberto Costa, Neil O'Brien, Peter Bedford and Alicia Kearns, and handed in on Monday with colleagues Luke Evans and Ed Argar. Costa's petition alone carried more than 15,000 names, Bedford's more than 9,500, and those collected by O'Brien and Kearns more than 14,000 between them.
The government's own consultation on the changes drew roughly 6,600 responses, and Luke Evans told reporters that 87 per cent of them opposed city expansion. "Time and again local people raised legitimate concerns, only to feel those concerns were being ignored," he said after Monday's hand-in. "While the government's pause is welcome, this is not the end of the matter."
His stance was echoed by Costa, the South Leicestershire MP: "The MPs and council leaders present today are united against these plans. We will keep working together to fight for our residents, until city expansion is taken off the table."
The Great British PAC has been involved in the campaign from the ground up. Danuta Jeeves, East Midlands Regional Director for Great British PAC, represented the PAC at Downing Street with Monday's delegation. The PAC says it has spent recent weeks supporting protests across the county and coordinating with campaign groups in other counties facing similar reorganisation plans.
In a message sent after the hand-in, Jeeves said residents "were not given a vote or say in this and most of them do not want it", adding: "We WILL fight on as 'People Power' can and does work."
Claire Bullivant, CEO of Great British PAC, said:
"The people of Leicestershire are speaking, loudly and clearly, and it is time the Government listened.
Yesterday, our Leicestershire Regional Director, Danuta Jeeves, was proud to stand alongside local campaigners, MPs and councillors as these petitions were handed over. This is what grassroots democracy looks like, ordinary people standing up for their towns, villages and communities and refusing to have fundamental changes imposed upon them from above.
This campaign has brought together people from across the political spectrum because some things are bigger than party politics. Communities that have been part of Leicestershire for generations should not simply be swallowed into an expanded Leicester because somebody in Whitehall has decided to redraw a map.
When thousands upon thousands of residents sign petitions, MPs unite to fight the proposals, councillors overwhelmingly oppose them and local people repeatedly say 'no', government cannot simply carry on as though their views are an inconvenience.
The Great British PAC is proud to stand with Hands Off Leicestershire. The message to ministers could not be clearer, listen to the people, respect local democracy and keep your hands off Leicestershire's towns and villages."
Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby, who first proposed the expanded city, has dismissed the petitions as an "empty political gesture". He argues the communities in question are already effectively part of Leicester, and that the change would free up space for the city's estimated need for 30,000 new homes by 2046. Leicester City Council estimates the reorganisation would save £46 million a year across the county's councils by cutting duplication.
The government has defended the scheme in similar terms. "Local government reorganisation in Leicestershire will put one council in charge of decisions in their area," a spokesperson said. "This will speed up the construction of new homes and infrastructure, improve public services and boost regional growth to put more money in people's pockets."
Soulsby believes the expansion is delayed rather than dead. The legal review now under way covers 14 areas of the country, so the outcome is far from certain. What is already clear is that opposition remains substantial, with more than 40,000 signatures now delivered to Downing Street.
Forty thousand people do not sign a petition by accident. Whatever ministers decide after the legal review, the scale of the petition means opposition to Leicester's expansion will be difficult to dismiss as a marginal protest.