Over 50 years our councils have become progressively larger, resulting in an average population of 177,700, more than ten times larger than the average for four comparable European countries – France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

We should we be very worried about this huge discrepancy and in our new book we explain why. What has happened since the major reorganisations in Greater London (1965) and the Metropolitan County Council areas (1974) is that local authorities have become increasingly detached from places and communities with which local people identify; what we call ‘real places' as opposed to the arbitrary amalgamations of real places exemplified by Cheshire East, North Northamptonshire and Mid Bedfordshire.