There are calls on Shire Hall’s Liberal Democrat leadership to have a “reality check” and drop plans to split Gloucestershire into two new unitary authorities.

Gloucestershire County Council is working with the six district councils to develop options to submit to the minister for local government reorganisation.

However, there are opposing views among the Lib Dems who make up the administration at Shire Hall over how the county should be governed.

Officers are currently working on two options, one which would be a single unitary made up of the six districts and the county council.

The other option is splitting the current county council into two.

The Forest would be in a west Gloucestershire council with Gloucester and Stroud.

David Redgewell, a member of the public who asked a question at the full meeting on September 10, said it is “frustrating to see so many options drawn up for the small county of Gloucestershire”.

“It has already lost the south to Bristol and South Gloucestershire in 1974,” he said.

“Now to suggest splitting it in half again, with two directors of social services, two directors of housing, two directors of fire service.

He said: “Meanwhile the concerns we have, reality check, economic development, growth, employment, people living in this county that need a future and need a governance of this county.

“Every other county in the south west has gone unitary, it hasn’t split itself into bits.

“Could I please ask you between now and November 27 that you try to come to some conformity of a county area that doesn’t make it more expensive to run services in this authority?

“Why do we need two directors of highways, two directors of social services? I don’t see this is politics, it’s not people, it’s not communities.“Can’t the councillors in Gloucestershire please run Gloucestershire and go out to a proper consultation with the community because the last one was a bit of a sham.”

His speech was met with applause from opposition councillors.

Council leader Lisa Spivey (LD, South Cerney) said the authority is working with the six district councils to deal with local government reorganisation.

And she said they are working hard to get a submission for November 28.

“We will do all the work we can,” she said.

“The reason we’ve come together to work collaboratively across the seven councils is that we know this is unfortunately not a decision that is going to be made in this chamber or indeed any of the chambers across this county.

“It is a decision that will be made in Whitehall.

“It is incumbent on us to make sure that whatever decision is made by the minister at some point next year is that we can actually implement that.

“Yes, I would love for us to be the ones who are the ones deciding but it’s not the case.”

She said there will be a full consultation when submissions have been put to the government.