Letter: Society strongly in favour of keeping the New Forest together

The Lymington Society supports the NFDC preferred rural option for a new unitary authority but also strongly appeals for greater powers and resources to be devolved to Lymington and Pennington and other town councils.

We are concerned that the current system, wherein Lymington and Pennington is governed by four separate authorities, has resulted in poor maintenance of the town, deteriorating public spaces, a lack of local democracy and missed opportunities for strategic development.

We urge that towns like Lymington and Pennington are granted significantly more autonomy, and suggest that part of the reorganisation of local government should involve transferring key assets and a larger share of council funding to town-level leadership, enabling more coordinated, responsive, and locally accountable services.

We are also strongly in favour of keeping the New Forest together rather than being hived off with neighbouring authorities’ cherry picking the bits of the New Forest District they want. For this reason, we support the NFDC’s preferred option to partner with other similar rural areas rather than the New Forest being bolted on to a big rural area such as Southampton.

Don Mackenzie, chair, the Lymington Society