Commentary on Sections Part 7: Mergers and Restructuring Of Principal Areas Chapter 1: Voluntary Mergers of Principal Areas Section 121 – Merger applications
527.Section 121 enables two or more principal councils to make a joint application (referred to in this Part as a “merger application”) to the Welsh Ministers, asking them to make regulations to merge their principal areas to create a single new principal area.
528.Subsection (2) disapplies section 101 of the 1972 Act (by which a principal council may make arrangements for any of its functions to be discharged by a committee, a sub-committee or an officer of the council or by any other principal council) in relation to the function of making a voluntary merger application.
529.Subsection (3) provides that making an application is a function which may not be discharged by the executives of those councils. Accordingly, the decision to make an application for voluntary merger may only be made by the full council of each of the principal councils making the joint application.
530.If a merging council has a directly elected mayor, the mayor will be entitled to participate and vote in any meeting of the council to approve the application.
531.If the Welsh Ministers decide not to approve a voluntary merger application they must notify the councils concerned.