THE Barossa Council has expressed its adamant opposition to Gawler Council’s “unilateral” and “flawed” push to take in neighbouring areas.

In a letter written to the SA Local Government Boundaries Commission, Mayor Bim Lange said Barossa Council will fight the proposal alongside its residents and other interested parties.

“The proposal of the Town of Gawler is flawed for a raft of reasons,” he said.

“The main reason being that those that are the most impacted actually don’t want it!”

Mr Lange said the proposal should not proceed based on Gawler Council’s own “flawed” data collected during last year’s consultation period.

“The consultation process returned approximately 200 responses. This cannot be any way represented as a holistic sample to justify the continuance of a political and utopian viewpoint that will waste many hundreds of thousands of ratepayer and State Government funds,” he said.

“Town of Gawler through their own consultation results; has demonstrated that the majority, and a strong majority of those impacted, especially the Barossa Council and Light Regional Council residents are against this proposal.

“The Town of Gawler itself remains divided on this matter (and many other matters) subsequently putting themselves and our community in a position of risk to govern such a change, let alone provide any confidence to our residents.”

In December, Gawler Council pushed ahead with stage two of its boundary reform proposal, which will involve an assessment by the commission to determine if it will continue further.

Gawler is hoping to take Kalbeeba and the Concordia Growth Area from Barossa Council, portions of Evanston Park and Hillier from Playford Council, and Reid, Hewett and some of Gawler Belt from Light Regional.

Under the plan sections of Bibaringa and Uleybury would be ceded to Playford Council.

At its latest meeting Light Regional said it concurs with the Barossa Council’s sentiments as expressed in Mayor Lange’s letter.

The Barossa Council has previously put forward its own stage one proposal – affecting land in Greenock, Seppeltsfield and Gomersal – which was later withdrawn.