Cash spent on running five different councils has meant the county council “doesn’t have the money” to improve roads, leader Martin Tett has said.

Cllr Tett took to the streets in Beaconsfield this morning to talk to residents and said that moving towards a unitary council could “free up” money to spend on vital services.

The debate over the council system was ignited by former Bucks County Council chief executive, Chris Williams, back in March when he said the current two-tier system was “not fit for purpose and too expensive.”

Since then, both Bucks County Council and South Bucks District Council with Chiltern District Council, have initiated their own independent studies to find the best option for the future.

Speaking to the Bucks Free Press, county council leader Cllr Tett said the future of the system has been the “hottest topic” for residents today, along with the state of the roads, and agreed that it was “crazy” to have five different councils within the county.

He said: “We have had an enormous amount of people say “why on earth have we got five chief executives? We didn’t even know there were five councils”. We don’t need five councils, we don’t need five chief executives, we don’t need five finance departments, or five HR teams. Why don’t we just have one?

“We could free up so much money from the back office to spend on the services that people really value. The big one is roads. Everyone talks about the roads and pavements and I am very honest with people – there isn’t enough money to do all the roads, particularly all the side roads and residential roads and cul-de-sacs.

“We haven’t got the money to do that, but if we could free up the money from the back office elsewhere we could spend more money on frontline services, be it roads or vulnerable children.”

He also said having one council rather than five would provide a more joined-up approach to the local plans that are being prepared by each district.

The Wycombe district alone faces an extra 10,000 new homes being built there to meet housing demands, according to Wycombe District Council’s draft local plan.

Cllr Tett said: “We could integrate what the district councils are doing with planning and all the local plans they are producing and integrate the local plan with all the infrastructure.

“So whether that’s highways, roundabouts, bypasses, broadband, schools, if you put them all into the same planning process, rather than having these different plans – it is crazy.”