CHESHIRE County Council's bid to have a single unitary authority for the whole of the county could face difficulty in engaging local communities, according to the Boundary Committee's report.

The committee's report is largely supportive of the county's bid, which is the cheapest at 'being in business' of all the options, but does raise issue with the way it would promote democracy on a local level.

It states: "We consider that a county-wide unitary authority would be well-placed to take forward the role of the county council in the existing network of county-wide and sub-county partnerships, with private, public and voluntary and community sectors."

It adds: "Although the submission considered the issue of maintaining community involvement at a local level, the county council acknowledge that parish and town councils may not be in a position to carry out a service provider role. Indeed, some parishes may not wish to take on such a role.

"However, there may be some disadvantages with this proposal in terms of community identity within the county council area. We note that the MORI opinion research shows that only 38 per cent of Cheshire residents asked felt very or fairly strongly about belonging to the county council area.

"This was the lowest response of all the two-tier counties under review. There is a slightly stronger identification with district council areas, 44 per cent, although this was also low in the regional context.

"This raises some questions over a county-wide authority's ability to engage residents, although we accept that the concept of area committees may go some way towards addressing the issue.

"We consider that one of the most important challenges that would face a single unitary authority would be to be sufficiently 'local' to effectively represent all the communities in the county, while providing services which meet the needs of local people."