I SEE that Devon county council is going to court to prevent the Unitary status of Exeter city council. There must be quite a traffic jam building up with more and more councils in the courts.

It is rather curious that some of the same people at Devon county council now opposing Exeter were able to support the unitary bid in Cornwall whilst at the same time supporting the status quo with their own districts.

I suspect that like many of its other un-thought through projects, the Government may be wishing it had not started the unitary adventure.

However, their ability to ignore public opinion, which seems to be consistently four to one against constitutional changes, indicates that they will press on regardless. So, short of a successful challenge in the courts or a change of government policy, we are faced with the awesome prospect of massive local government reorganisation. We only have to think of the recent job evaluations in the public sector that have and still are costing time, money and morale to envisage turmoil.

The greatest risk if we are forced into unitary changes is that the losers (in Cornwall it is the districts) will adopt a perfunctory engagement with the process which would have huge impacts on service delivery and revenue.

Cornwall county council therefore has wisely adopted a policy of equal partnership working with the districts during any confirmed implementation period. The districts will hopefully see this as a strong builder of mutual trust whilst still maintaining their own positions with regard to the concept.

During this period of uncertainty we can at least be in consultation and not skirmishing prior to all out war.

James Currie, Conservative group leader, Cornwall county council