North Devon Council is presenting a united front with other district councils in the county and backing what is known as a 1-4-5 plan for local government reorganisation.

This week the full council supported the option which merges North Devon with Torridge, Exeter, Mid Devon and East Devon (5); Torbay with West Devon, Teignbridge and the South Hams (4) and Plymouth on its own (1), but recognising all this might change.

The government wants initial proposals by this Friday on how the county might be divided into unitary councils covering around 500,000 residents which will have responsibility for all local services.

Devon’s two tier system of district and county councils – where each is responsible for different things – will be abolished.

Plymouth is already a unitary council and Exeter has ambitions to be one. Both would have to grow by expanding into neighbouring areas to get to a size the government requires.

Torbay is also a unitary and would like to stay one but with fewer than 140,000 people, it knows this is a long shot.

Devon County Council has put forward five options for the new look local government, one of which is the 1-4-5 option, to which all of the district councils, barring Exeter have now signed up.

Councillors in North Devon said they believed Plymouth and Exeter, being Labour led, may well have the ear of the government and get their wishes.

Cllr Paul Crabb (Con, Ilfracombe East) said Plymouth seemed confident that its desire to expand into 13 parishes of the South Hams, bringing it to a population size of more than 300,000, would go ahead.

Members agreed that taking Plymouth and Exeter out of the equation would leave district councils with no economic centre and limited means of making money.

Cllr Caroline Leaver (Lib Dem, Newport) said it was important that North Devon becomes part of an Exeter unitary authority: “Much as I love Barnstaple it’s not a main economic driver. We would be cutting our nose off to spite our face if we decided Exeter was too far away. An awful lot of people who live here work in Exeter.

“I know the district councils together have worked really hard with limited data and the 1-4-5 option is the best they have come up with which appears to fit in line with what the government wants.”

She said presenting a united front was going to serve the council better than “squabbling and presenting different proposals” and that Exeter would find it difficult to go on its own with a population of 130,000.

Cllr Malcolm Prowse (Ind, Bratton Fleming) said he had read every paragraph of the bids put forward by Plymouth and Exeter and they were “very professional”.

“We have to think about the politics in this and they may well have the ear of the Labour government.

“The 1-4-5 options works very well as it is but if Exeter starts to nibble away at all the areas around them we will need to look at it again.”

Councillors agreed that they should not get too polarised on a proposal as there had been limited data so far.

Council leader David Clayton (Lib Dem, Barnstaple with Westacott) said districts had to “stumble around the dark” as far as figures were concerned but what the government did want was “unity of purpose” and they had certainly got that with seven of the districts.

The red lines for North Devon is that it needed to stay with Torridge, he said.

He continued: “North Devon Council will continue to examine all options before reaching any firm conclusions,” he said. “This is an interim proposal that we support but we are not shutting the door on other options.”

He warned members though that developing a proposal would cost between £150,000 and £250,000, including employing consultants to collate the data.

Should the council decide to go it alone with another proposal without the support of others it would have to find that money.

“The costs of developing the 1-4-5 option would be split between seven councils,” he said.

Detailed proposals need to be submitted in November.