WEST Devon Borough Council has approved the next step towards transferring all its services into a company which would have the ability in the future to trade its services.

Other councils and organisations have set up similar ventures, but none are similar to West Devon Borough and South Hams District Council, which are jointly proposing to transfer all their services into one company.

Jointly owned, the company would run all of the councils’ current services, but could also sell those services to other councils and generate a profit, which would help both councils to achieve financial security.

Leader of West Devon Borough Council Cllr Philip Sanders said: ‘Our councillors took a brave step towards setting up a local authority controlled company. This has not been an easy decision, because there are risks, but West Devon Borough Council has never shied away from big decisions and has always led local authority innovation. 

‘With South Hams we were the first council in the country to share a chief executive, now we will be the first to take full control of our future.’

Councillors agreed to create a joint steering group with South Hams District Council, which will work through all of the detail of setting up such a company and progress towards the launch of the company. The steering group will bring the details of its work back to full councils at both authorities for a final decision before a company is set up.

A huge amount of work has already been done to develop a detailed business case and commercial case for the councillors to make their decision. This work concluded that there was a credible case for establishing a local authority controlled company, but there was still some work that the steering group would need to do to move the project forward.

Although approved by West Devon Borough Council, this same decision was due to be made at South Hams Full council last week, for the steering group to be established and the implementation of the company to begin.