ABSTRACT
The most radical proposal which has so far been made by the Local Government Commission concerns the South East Lancashire Special Review Area. The Commission recommended that a continuous county be established to cover the entire conurbation together with nine most-purpose authorities making up the second tier. The Liverpool City Council was eager to see a continuous county set up to be the top tier organ for metropolitan-wide functions throughout the conurbation. The Commission rejected this obvious solution on the ground that Merseyside contains a number of county districts whose populations are well below 100,000 and it would be ‘rather artificial’ to amalgamate them into most-purpose authorities of reasonable size and resources. The weakest proposals made by the Local Government Commission were those for the West Midlands Special Review Area.
