What did ministers expect? Across the North, county and district councils have jumped at the Government's invitation to bid for unitary status.
Yet Sir Michael Lyons and local government minister, Phil Woolas, seem to regard the torrent of unitary applications as rather vulgar.
The ‘giant queue of two-tier councils pressing for unitary status in combative fashion' (Sir Michael Lyons, The MJ, 14 December) stretches from Northumbria to Lancashire.
Predictably, the barely-healed wounds from the aborted reorganisation plans around regional government are reopening. Lancashire, a county council with a second tier of 12 districts, is in particular ferment.
Proud Preston is bidding for premier status. So is historic Lancaster, claiming Lancashire CC needs to go on a territorial diet.
In Durham, it is the districts which are throwing down the two-tier gauntlet. Six of them have rejected Durham's unitary bid. Both Cumbria and Northumberland want to run all-purpose councils.
Conservative leader, David Cameron, has posed the North's two Tory-controlled shires quite a dilemma. Cheshire CC has long advocated an all-purpose county. But, I'm told pressure from Conservative HQ has led to last-minute wavering. Party policy discourages unitary bids but the City of Chester is backing a two unitary east/west split of the county. It will take extraordinary council meetings to settle whether Cheshire and North Yorkshire counties defy advice.
So, there will be plenty of unitary bids from the North, but ministers suggest only a few will be chosen.
This is the fifth time in 30 years of local government journalism that I've reported on plans for structural change.
Most chief executives are now convinced of the merits of single-tier local government. Perhaps it's about time the issue was settled once and for all.

Jim Hancock is former politcal editor with BBC North West and now writes on public sector issues.