It is usually the case that no-one is much interested in local government or what it does … until something goes wrong that directly affects them.

So we shouldn’t be surprised if the population at large is currently unexcited by the sweeping changes taking place across the country. But these things ultimately affect everyone. And as we have learned from the recent Local Plan process, early engagement is crucial to influencing decision makers. There is a lot to learn for us about a process which is complex and opaque, as well as changing with baffling frequency.

A common response has been denial: it’ll never happen. Yet the Labour Government is moving with uncharacteristic speed to change in fundamental ways the structures that have governed us since 1974. For Kent that means that by early 2028 we can expect to see the 12 District Councils (the City Council, in Canterbury’s case), Medway and the County all abolished, to be replaced by Unitary Councils providing all local Government services. Above that, in time, will sit a new “regional” Mayor for Kent providing strategic control of transport, economic development and planning, among other things.

As yet, no one quite knows precisely what that will mean in practice. But there are some questions to which we do broadly have the answer.

Firstly, it’s expected there will be three or four Unitary councils across Kent. The Reform UK controlled Kent County is arguing for only one, but that position is not tenable given the Government’s explicit preference for the new Councils to have around 500,000 residents.

What that suggests is that the Council which controls all our key local services and critical long term local planning will be more remote than at present. It also suggests that there will be far fewer Councillors per resident than we have now. Even if a new Council has 100 Councillors – which in my view is an unmanageable number under a Cabinet system – it is likely that Canterbury city, for example, might be represented by only four Councillors rather than the 11 who sit on the City Council now.

With the new Councils likely to be focussed on the daunting task of making sure that their key services are safe and legal on the day they take over, we can expect them to be preoccupied with those services which have already stretched local government to breaking point: social care, education, highways and refuse collection. As, it seems, there is no additional funding going to be provided for any services, then that is a massive challenge which will fully occupy officers and councillors alike.

With their resources and finances focussed on that, where does that leave the many lower profile and more localised services? What can we expect for our parks and gardens, arts venues, pre-school playgroups, sports and recreation and so on?

Services like these are highly important to local communities. But for that very reason they have little Council-wide impact. It is hard to see how, in a financially constrained Council, any specifically local activity can expect support. These are usually non-statutory services, so the risk is that they will be seen as luxuries when the new Council has to establish its spending priorities. Even if those are decisions Councillors will take reluctantly, it is a clear risk to the small scale local services which, for many of us, define our communities.

The speculation is that the new Councils will seek to devolve responsibility for these activities to the only tier of public service provision that exists below them: Parish and Town Councils. If that’s the case, such responsibility may not be accompanied by funding. Which raises the real likelihood that the whole nature of parish and town councils is going to change, without any deliberate decision or intention for that to happen. It is not at all clear that the central Government ministries which started the whole process have considered this at all.

Canterbury, though, is uniquely unprepared to address this risk. None of our three urban areas has a local Town Council. That makes them exceptional within both our District and within every other area of a new East Kent Unitary Council. In effect, as things stand there will simply not be a public body to which to devolve services. Nor, incidentally, does there seem to be any public body which can hold the City’s Charter, which gives us our City status, or fund the work of the Lord Mayor. As things stand, our Council is pinning its hopes on someone else – the new East Kent Council or some undefined group of “trustees” – to provide a resolution to this, as well as bearing all the costs.

Why they would do that when they have other priorities and the problem is caused by our Council’s diffidence, remains unexplained. Certainly leaving the costs and resources needed to address this problem to an as yet non-existent Council seems precarious and, perhaps, reckless.

It’s time our Council took this seriously and undertook the work needed – before we all find out that it is too late.