LIGHT Regional Council is ‘holding fire’ on its plan to take in Willaston, despite Gawler Council’s decision to progress its own boundary reform proposal.

Light Regional Mayor Bill O’Brien said his council is confident Gawler’s proposal, which seeks to take Hewett, Gawler Belt, and Reid, will ultimately fail, especially as it moves into a stage of public consultation.

Light Regional Council had previously said if Gawler Council failed to withdraw its proposal it would begin the process of submitting its own proposal to have Willaston become part of a new combined Light Regional, Barossa Council, under a new name.

At its latest meeting, Gawler Council voted to continue its expansion plan, which also seeks Kalbeeba and Concordia from Barossa Council, with a public consultation process to start in the second half of this year.

“We don’t want to have a running battle with the boundary reforms proposal and do the same thing Gawler has done,” Mr O’Brien last week told The Bunyip.

“I’ve had a lot of people say ‘good on you, we think (Light Regional’s proposal) is a great idea’, but it has got to come from those people and not from us.

“We won’t be going in to fight just for the sake of it.

“We don’t believe the Gawler proposal will get up any way, not with the weight of numbers against them – the people of Hewett I think have spoken very loudly.”

Mr O’Brien said he disputed comments made by Gawler councillor Cody Davies at Gawler’s meeting, claiming Barossa Council pulling out of its own boundary reform agenda would make it easier to work with LRC.

“You start to carve out major portions of a regional council and think it’s going to have no consequence?” Mr O’Brien said.

“It is going to have major consequences and it’s going to have major social consequences too because the people there are telling us they don’t want to move.

“So on that basis we are going to stand up for them – that is going to cost us time, cost us resources and take our eye off the ball on things we should be doing.”

Meanwhile, Mr O’Brien said his council needed clarification on the stance of Barossa Council’s boundary reform proposal, seeking parts of Greenock, Seppeltsfield and Gomersal.

Barossa Council moved to not undertake a formal general submission to the SA Local Government at its February meeting, however Mayor Bim Lange was later quoted in local press  as stating “there is no way that council is not pursuing stage two”.

“I think it is unfair to believe we could sit here as a council and have a hand grenade hanging over our head, that could be dropped at any time,” Mr O’Brien said.

On Friday, a Barossa Council spokesman said the Barossa Council has resolved not to pursue further formal boundary reform “at this time”.

“Council remains focused on higher priority work but will, however, continue to try and resolve small anomalies in local government boundaries, such as those in Nuriootpa, with Light Regional Council,” they said.