That’s according to Break O’Day mayor Mick Tucker, who said his council had been invited to a public meeting at Coles Bay about the proposed border change in the coming weeks.

On Tuesday Glamorgan Spring Bay will hold a special council meeting to decide if it will continue with the voluntary amalgamation process being investigated with the Clarence, Sorell and Tasman Peninsula councils. 

Mayor Michael Kent said the meeting was for the councillors to approve the next step of asking the Local Government Board to undertake a review, which includes a due diligence assessment of the amalgamation options.

A KPMG report into the options for a great south eastern council was released in March 2017.

Cr Kent said Break O’Day had declined to be part of those amalgamation discussions and the boundary adjustment was about gaining extra income.

“[Boundary adjustment] is a step too early in my opinion,” Cr Kent said.

“If the recommendation is accepted then there will be a new amalgamated council who would then have to deal with the boundary adjustments going forward.”

One part of the recommendation to be discussed at Tuesday’s meeting is to also request that the Local Government Board investigates boundary adjustments with other councils including Southern Midlands and Break O’Day.

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A voluntary merger of the Break O’Day and Glamorgan Spring Bay councils was most recently considered in 2009, but the Local Government Board did not believe a single merged east coast council would be substantially more sustainable than the two existing stand-alone councils.

A separate KMPG report, released in September 2017, showed that if the boundary change went ahead Break O’Day would have an additional operating revenue of $3.2 million.

There would also be additional operating expenditure of $2.3 million per year and an estimated $390,000 in extra capital works.

The readjustment would “largely depend” on Glamorgan Spring Bay amalgamating with councils to its south, the KPMG report said.

“The people of Glamorgan Spring Bay are the people that need to make the decision and inform their council of what they would like to see, and then the council needs to try and facilitate it, which I believe is exactly what they’re doing,” Cr Tucker said.

“Realistically, we’ve still got a long way to go.”