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[[Lancashire]] and [[Derbyshire]] County Councils had taken the revised guidance to the [[High Court]], seeking a [[judicial review]] that it was illegal. On [[January 28]], the High Court ruled in their favour, implying that that the Commission should consider retaining the status quo, either in part or wholly, as an option as well.
The first proposal was the quite uncontroversial one to make [[Isle of Wight]] a single unitary authority. The island had been split quite artificially between [[South Wight]] and [[Medina (borough)|Medina]] boroughs, with a Wight County Council, since [[1974]].
In the end, the Commission recommended [[County of Avon|Avon]], [[Cleveland, England|Cleveland]], [[Humberside]], [[Buckinghamshire]], [[Bedfordshire]] and [[Berkshire]] county councils to be abolished. Elsewhere, it operated rather inconsistently, with large districts sometimes being recommended for unitary status, but sometimes not. In early [[1995]], soon after the report had been delivered, John Banham resigned.▼
From the first tranche, the commission recommended that [[County of Avon|Avon]], [[County of Cleveland|Cleveland]] and [[Humberside]] should be abolished and broken up into four unitary authorities each. It also recommended that the rump [[Somerset]] be broken up into three unitary authorities (overriden by John Gimmer). It suggested that North Yorkshire be split into three unitary authorities - one for [[York]], and two others called [[West Riding of Yorkshire]] and [[North Riding of Yorkshire]]. The latter two were rejected, and so an expanded York became a unitary authority, with the rest of North Yorkshire remaining two-tier. It recommended no change in [[Lincolnshire]] and [[Gloucestershire]].
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The government considered the final report of the Banham Commission. Avon, Cleveland and Humberside were creations of the [[1974]] reform and were unable to stop their abolition. However, in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire it did not accept the recommendations of the Commmission, which was for an entirely unitary structure, and decided to only make [[Luton]] and [[Milton Keynes (borough)|Milton Keynes]] unitary, with the rest of those counties retaining a two-tier structure. The proposal to abolish Berkshire County Council was accepted, however. This had been strongly supported by the County Council earlier, though as implementation drew closer, and the political composition of the Council altered, it changed its mind.
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