A public consultation on the merger of West Devon and South Hams councils has delivered a close ‘no’ vote from West Devon residents.

The postal, online and telephone consultation of West Devon residents delivered a result of 44.54% of West Devon residents saying yes to the merger and 55.46% saying no. In the South Hams, residents delivered a more emphatic no to the proposal, with 85.98% voting no and 14.02% voting yes.

West Devon Borough Council leader Philip Sanders said it was ‘disappointing’ that just 3% of West Devon residents had taken part in the consultation, which cost £10,000 of taxpayers’ money. In the South Hams only 3% of residents responded as well.

‘I think all of us on the council were disappointed, however, we have been using firms who do these things all the time, and their judgement is that this figure is actually much higher than they would have predicted for this type of consultation,’ said Mr Sanders. ‘We did everything we possibly could to get people to understand there was a consultation going on. There was a lot of money involved in order to get to all the population and make sure we had done as much as we possibly could. We actually sent a postcard to every single household in the borough.’

While the majority of responses actually received from residents came from the council’s online survey, the council stressed that they had also conducted an ‘statistically sound, independent telephone survey’ to make sure that they had ‘a genuinely representative view from residents across both councils’.

Members of both councils are due to meet to decide whether to go with residents views and vote against the merger at meetings on October 31.

Mr Sanders said that no decision had yet been made. He said councillors would take the public’s views into account but they were ‘not the only factor’ in the councillors’ decision.

‘The consultation was obviously only part of the process leading up to the two council meetings on October 31. It is for each individual councillor to make their own decision and they will take into account the financial and strategic implications as well.

‘It would be impossible for me to dictate how all 31 members of us (on West Devon Borough Council) will vote,’ he said. ‘Clearly we are not going to ignore the public vote and we will be guided by it but it isn’t the only factor and there are many other things that need to be considered.

Asked if he had made his mind up about the consultation, he said: ‘I have always said that I wanted to see the results of the consultation and I wanted some time to think about that, and decide how much weight it was going to get amongst all the other factors. Both councils obviously have difficult financial decisions coming and this is a way of trying to resolve that problem in the immediate and long term.’

The consultation of West Devon residents involved officers and councillors attending 30 town and parish council meetings and posting more than 310 messages on social media, including 35 videos explaining forthcoming budget pressures. There were also 27 public meetings held across the borough during the eight-week consultation.

The merger of the two councils is being proposed to address a £1.9-million gap in finances of both councils which are blamed on successive reductions in Government funding over the past seven years.