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UK Local Elections 2026
3SEP

MP says option D splits Huntingdonshire

2 min read
12:41UTC

Ben Obese-Jecty told a Westminster Hall debate the Government had settled on option D, dividing his district between two unitaries and tying part of it to a council geared at 91%.

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Key takeaway

Obese-Jecty alleges option D splits Huntingdonshire and joins part of it to a council geared at 91%.

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative member of Parliament for Huntingdon, told the Westminster Hall debate of 1 September that ministers had settled on "option D", splitting Huntingdonshire between a Mid Cambridgeshire unitary and a Greater Peterborough one 1. That is his account, not a Government announcement. The minister did not confirm the option, and no Structural Changes Order, the statutory instrument that legally creates a new council, was laid during the window 2.

Obese-Jecty quoted the option's own business case against it. Peterborough City Council carries debt worth 91% of its assets, measured against a national gearing benchmark of 50%, and holds a high-risk resilience rating from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy 3.

A new unitary inherits every predecessor's borrowing and every predecessor's assets, and the ratio between the two governs what it can borrow next. Attach a district to a council already geared against 91% of what it owns, and the successor authority opens with almost no headroom. Borrowing headroom is what pays for school places, road repairs and housing, so the constraint reaches residents through services rather than through the council tax bill, which is where they would look for it.

The department withheld a decision on the county in July, because the 500,000-population threshold was hardest to defend there , and every option drawn up since has involved dividing something that currently sits together. Huntingdonshire's own politics have not waited: the Liberal Democrats took St Neots Eynesbury from Reform UK in the district in August .

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, told a Westminster Hall debate that ministers have privately settled on option D for reorganising Cambridgeshire and Peterborough's councils, which would split his own Huntingdonshire district between two new unitary councils. He cited Peterborough City Council's debt gearing, a measure of how much of its assets are funded by borrowing, at 91% against a 50% national benchmark, as a reason to worry about the plan. The minister did not confirm his claim, and no formal order has been made.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Debt gearing measures how much of a council's asset base is funded by borrowing rather than reserves or income; Peterborough's 91% figure, against a 50% national benchmark, means most of its asset value is debt-financed.

Folding Peterborough into a single new unitary, as option D's Greater Peterborough would, concentrates that borrowing cost onto whichever area's council tax base ends up carrying it, which explains why the Huntingdon MP objects to this specific boundary rather than to reorganisation as such.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    Whichever unitary inherits Peterborough's debt burden faces a structurally weaker starting balance sheet than one that does not.

Sources:Hansard, House of Commons
Mentions:Ben Obese-Jecty →Huntingdonshire →Mid Cambridgeshire →Greater Peterborough →Peterborough City Council →Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) →Parliament →Liberal Democrats →St Neots Eynesbury →Cambridgeshire and Peterborough →Westminster →Reform UK →
First Reported In

Update #17 · Reform's £4m arrived as cash, not crypto

Hansard, House of Commons· 3 Sept 2026
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