THE new Reform administration at at Suffolk County Council will seek legal action against the Government's plans to split Suffolk into three as early as next week.

Cllr Michael Hadwen, who is expected to be appointed the authority's leader on Thursday, has begun setting out their plans for the county.

Chief among these is an attempt to overrule the Government's decision to scrap Suffolk's county, district and borough councils and replace them with three unitary authorities with more powers.

The new leader branded the changes as 'madness' and warned the new unitaries would end up fighting for the same resources and services.

"I don't want to see my county divided, so we are going to be mounting a legal challenge against the Government," he said.

A pre-action letter – the step before a full-blown court claim – is expected to be sent to the Government next week after the council's annual general meeting (AGM), when Cllr Hadwen is set to formally take over as leader.

The announcement follows last week's local elections results, which saw Reform UK take over Suffolk County Council, with 41 of the 70 available seats.

Both Norfolk and Essex county councils, where the party also became the leading force, have already announced they would be seeking a judicial review.

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Cllr Hadwen admitted there would be a cost to taxpayers should the challenge go to court, but said it would be 'considerably less' than if these reforms were implemented.

The announcement has been met with opposition from those who led the campaign for the county to be split into three.

Cllr Neil MacDonald, Ipswich's leader, said time would be better used moving forward on an Ipswich bypass or addressing the state of the roads.

He said: "Clearly, they don't care any more about Ipswich than the previous Tory administration did.

"Reform is starting off by wasting taxpayers' money, despite widespread support for a new council centred on Ipswich."

Cllr Andrew Stringer, the main opposition leader at the county council, said this was a 'poor start' for the new administration.

"We think a unitary government gives us the best chance of bringing services together while having accountability," he added, "we need to be busy delivering this new democratic model."

The county's Conservative Group, which actively campaigned against the three-unitary proposal and in favour of a single council covering the entire county, also came out against the legal challenge.

Cllr Richard Rout, the new group leader, said that disliking the decision was not enough for a judicial review and warned against the cost of something likely to fail.

"What has been described by Reform thus far sounds like a spurious scatter-gun approach – they don't even seem to know on what grounds they are challenging."

The exact grounds on which the council will challenge the Government are not yet decided, but will become clearer when the pre-action letter is submitted next week.