COUNCILS across Devon spent more than £5million preparing for the aborted revamp of local government – and now they want their money back.

Teignbridge is one of a number of councils calling for a judicial review into the whole process, and leader Cllr Richard Keeling revealed how much preparations for LGR had cost at a meeting of the council’s executive committee.

He said Teignbridge alone had already spent more than £90,000 getting ready for an overhaul that was currently on hold.

“This council has done so much work to prepare us, and at the last minute the government has said no,” he told the meeting.

“There has been a huge cost to this council and to Teignbridge taxpayers.

“We have produced a bill to the government for those costs, and we hope they will pay in full – otherwise we will be sending a second one.”

However, Cllr Keeling said there had been some benefits from the preparations made already for the LGR process.

“All is not lost,” he said.

“We can use the data we have collected so that all councils can understand what Devon residents want and what councils want to achieve.

“We all work better together, and there is a lot of work we can do by working with our partners in all the other districts.”

He said Teignbridge and neighbouring South Hams had already worked together to overcome problems with waste collections.

“We can do things better by learning from our neighbours, and they from us,” he said.

Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) was announced in December 2024, with the government aiming to sweep away an entire layer of local authorities.

Alldistrict councils – and the county council – were to be abolished in favour of creating four large unitary councils to govern the county. Plymouth, Exeter and Torbay were to expand while the fourth unitary was to serve the remainder of the county.

But the plans were thrown into disarray by the government’s decision last month to halt the process after taking legal advice.