THE controversial parish council merger of Laverstock and Salisbury is set for a crunch vote at County Hall on Tuesday with a special task group of councillors recommending they remain separate.

The cross-party group of councillors say a merger should only take place if “both councils and the community supported such a move”.

As residents of Laverstock and Ford Parish Council (LFPC) were “clearly opposed” to a merger they felt there was “no justification locally to support the proposal”.

The working group also commented that the existing arrangement provided “effective and convenient local government” with both LFPC and Salisbury City Council (SCC) “working effectively to provide services to their respective parish communities”.

Despite winning support of the working group, a vote will take place on Tuesday afternoon with Wiltshire councillors given the power to overturn the recommendation.

Conservative leader of Wiltshire Council (WC) Jane Scott has already confirmed that her party will have a free vote on the issue.

Chairman of LFPC David Burton welcomed the recommendation, saying a vote to abolish the parish council on Tuesday would be an “absolute travesty”.

“We are a parish of hard working residents with a strong, united community spirit,” he said.

“We want to work in partnership with neighbouring parishes to continue to develop our high quality community facilities for the benefit of all.

“From our support for the development of an award winning community farm and our first rate engagement with the secondary and primary schools in Laverstock, to our work to get the best deals from developers for residents in our new settlements of Old Sarum and Riverdown Park, we have provided evidence in spades that we are an effective and convenient parish council.”

Leader of SCC Andrew Roberts has threatened to pull the plug on the proposed asset transfer if councillors did not vote for the merger – despite it being agreed in principle last month. Cllr Roberts also hit out at the “flawed”

process of the working group, claiming they had not surveyed Salisbury residents.

He said: “If the recommendations are accepted I would not expect the proposed asset and service transfers to SCC to take place, as neither the fairness nor financial sustainability criteria will be met.

"A significant opportunity for real devolution for the benefit of the whole area could be lost, but we are in WC members’ hands on this, so we will just have to see what happens and whether or not they wish to support their own policy by giving us the necessary tools to do the otherwise agreed job.”

Matthew Dean, leader of the Conservative group on SCC, also disputed some of the findings saying he thought there was “quiet support” from residents in Laverstock which had been drowned out by “noisy lobbying”.

If the merger does not go ahead councillors will also rule on the border at Bishopdown Farm, with a recommendation to move 300 homes from SCC to LFPC.

SCC hopes 1,000 houses, including Hampton Park, will move the other way.