SOUTH Hams Council is ready to take on the Government in a legal battle rather than face local government extinction without a fight.

The district council has agreed to join in a bid for a judicial review if the Government backs the Boundary Committee's recommendation for the formation of a Devon super-council.

And South Hams Council leader John Tucker declared: "That will send a message to the minister of state that we are not just going to lie down."

A super-council decision would mean the formation of a single rural Devon unitary council — and the abolition of all the Devon district councils.

South Hams councillors have voted to pump up to £5,000 into joining other local authorities in a legal challenge to such a decision on the proviso that there is some chance of a successful outcome.

The council made its decision as it also voted to carry on with its objections to the super-council proposals which it has already condemned as too big, too remote and too expensive.

District councillor Keith Baldry said the entire Boundary Committee inquiry into the future of local government in Devon had been a 'shambles' from the word go.

"A unitary proposal is wrong for the people of South Hams and wrong for the people of Devon," he said.

The whole shake-up in the way Devon is ruled began two years ago after Exeter decided it wanted to go unitary just like Plymouth and Torbay.

The city was told it was not big enough but the Government still ordered a Boundary Committee review of the whole county outside of Torbay and Plymouth.

The options the Boundary Committee was originally looking at was a single rural unitary Devon with the possible addition of an extra unitary Devon with Exmouth.

Now the committee recommendation to the Government is for the single super-council covering the whole of rural Devon — sounding the death knell for all the district councils.

Mr Tucker said that since the Boundary Committee's recommendation had come out the opposition to the super-council had been growing stronger and stronger.

"Many people feel that they may not think that the South Hams Council is the best thing since sliced bread but they think it is better than unitary."

As he urged the council to back the funding of a legal challenge he added: "We need to do this to make sure that we kill this thing off properly."

The Government has given the county until January 19 to make its feelings known about the unitary plans before the secretary of state makes his decision.

Mr Tucker said that local councils and members of the public need to get their message across in that time.