Council plans to merge services with other authorities to cut costs have concerned trade union officials.

Shirley Mills, regional officer for Unison, said she was worried Richmond Council’s discussions with Kingston, Merton and Sutton councils could mean more redundancies were on the horizon.

Council leader Nick True has spoken to the three authorities to explore ways of sharing responsibilities.

Meanwhile, 58 per cent of people who responded to a Richmond and Twickenham Times poll said they did not think the council should merge with others, and 32 per cent said it should.

Ms Mills, who represents workers in Richmond, Kingston and Sutton, said: “We haven’t seen any of the plans on how this is going to work. The view of the trade union is that any merger of that kind is going to mean job losses, because if you’ve only got shared services then you only need one of each main function.

“I think it will be difficult for them to provide the same services as they’ve been providing as individual councils.”

She said if the authority was trying to create a “super council” like Kensington and Chelsea or Hammersmith and Fulham, then the number of staff would inevitably drop.

She wrote to Richmond, Kingston and Sutton councils this week and will call for them to discuss the plans with Unison as early as possible.

She added: “We need to know because no doubt there will be a high level of redundancies.

“Most of the councils have made redundancies in the past four or five months. If there’s going to be a merger on top of the restructuring carried out, we are looking at even more job losses.”

Kingston and Sutton councils signed a co-operation deal on September 30.

Conservative Kingston councillors have called for the authorities to merge electoral and legal services, trading standards, audit and environmental health and also to share contracted social care.

Councillor Geoffrey Samuel, cabinet member for finance at Richmond Council, said: “In some cases the potential savings notified to us are quite unexpectedly high.

“We are approaching other councils saying: ‘Could we share this? Can we share that?’ This is not only on some of the lesser things but also some of the major services.

“When you think about it there’s actually no services you can’t deliver jointly.”

Do you think the council should merge? Leave a comment on this story below