The council spent £295,000 on the reorganisation ministers scrapped on 7 September and has written to ask for it back. A new Local Plan needs 30 months.

East Hampshire District Council spent £295,000 preparing for a reorganisation that the government scrapped on 7 September, and it wants the money back. The council’s leader put the figure in a letter to the local government minister on 11 September.

The council has also said what the collapse means for planning in the district. It will start a new Local Plan under the government’s new system, a job it expects to take at least 30 months. In the meantime it will bring forward a faster Supplementary Plan.

The bill

Cllr Richard Millard, the council’s leader, wrote to Jim McMahon, Minister for Local Government, Devolution and Regional Growth. The letter is published in full on the council’s website.

Its central claim is specific. “My officers have calculated that £295,000 has been spent over the last 18 months directly on resourcing and commissioning LGR work at EHDC,” Cllr Millard writes. He adds that the figure excludes staff time moved off day-to-day work, which he says would “put our actual resource used far beyond the figure above”.

The letter makes one argument the accompanying press release does not. If the government is willing to pay councils’ legal expenses arising from judicial review, Cllr Millard argues, “the same principle must apply to other directly related work”.

It also sets a practical deadline. The council’s budget-setting process for next year is already under way, and officers will now have to “urgently and completely revisit” it. Cllr Millard asks to be told how much can be recovered, and how much “will be unfortunately written off”.

Timeline of East Hampshire's local government reorganisation: the government picked the five-unitary option on 25 March 2026, the council stopped work on its Local Plan on 28 May, ministers withdrew the decision on 7 September, the council leader wrote asking for its £295,000 back on 11 September, and a new Local Plan is not expected before 2029
Graphic by Petersfield Online. Sources: the government's decision and withdrawal letters, EHDC's Cabinet report of 28 May 2026 and Cllr Millard's letter of 11 September 2026.
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What was withdrawn

On 25 March 2026 the government chose the five-unitary option for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. All 14 existing councils in the area, East Hampshire included, were to be abolished on 1 April 2028.

Most of this district, Petersfield among it, would have gone into a new Mid Hampshire Council. Horndean, Rowlands Castle and Clanfield would have gone the other way, into South East Hampshire.

Ministers withdrew that decision on 7 September. The Secretary of State, Angela Rayner, intends to review the process and the evidence behind it, which the council says follows new legal advice. Reorganisation has not been cancelled, only stopped. Nobody has said when it might return or what shape it would take.

East Hampshire had opposed the chosen option. Its own preference, the letter notes, was a joint proposal with Hampshire County Council that was not taken forward.

What it does to planning here

This is the part that will reach residents first.

East Hampshire’s Cabinet gave up on its own Local Plan on 28 May 2026. Reorganisation was one of four reasons. The council now calls the boundary changes “the final nail in the coffin for the existing plan”.

With reorganisation withdrawn, that reason has gone, but the plan has not come back. In a statement published on 11 September the council set out what it will do instead:

  • prepare a new Local Plan under the government’s new planning system, a process it expects to take at least 30 months
  • bring forward a Supplementary Plan first, to get policies in place faster

The Supplementary Plan will cover four things, all carried over from the abandoned draft:

  • well-designed places
  • lower carbon emissions and better climate resilience in new buildings
  • using water wisely in new development
  • greener streets and open spaces

Cllr Millard’s statement is blunt about the position this leaves the council in. It is being asked to spend years and public money on a new plan while further reorganisation could make that work “changed, revisited or potentially wasted”.

The practical effect for anyone following a planning application is unchanged for now. East Hampshire still has no up-to-date Local Plan and no five-year housing land supply. At 1 April 2025 it could show 2.9 years. Petersfield town is a separate case: its planning authority is the South Downs National Park Authority, whose own Local Plan is due to be submitted in December.

What it means for you

  • Nothing changes at your door yet. East Hampshire District Council carries on exactly as it is. There is no abolition date and no shadow authority.
  • The May 2027 elections go back to the existing wards. They were to have been for the new unitary councils. We set out what the withdrawal changed in our report on 9 September.
  • If you object to a housing scheme, the absence of an up-to-date plan still weakens the council’s hand. That position now looks set to last into 2029.
  • The Supplementary Plan is the thing to watch. It is where design, water and carbon policies could land within months rather than years. The council has not yet published a consultation date for it.

Sources