AN HISTORIC new era dawns in Macclesfield in just seven days and council chiefs are hoping you won’t even notice!

The age of the new unitary authority ‘Cheshire East’ is ushered in on Wednesday, April 1 – taking charge of your tax bill, bins and roads, and replacing the two-tier local authority structure of Macclesfield Borough and Cheshire County created in 1974.

And the new regime has declared that the biggest success on vesting day would be a transition so seamless no one is even reminded it is happening.

Cheshire East leader, Coun Wesley Fitzgerald, speaking on Monday (March 23), said he was anxious to get started.

"In a transition of this order, there are bound to be taxing moments but we will be ready for them and I am pretty confident we will have a good transition," he said.

"We have got precious time left and people are still running existing councils, but I am satisfied things are coming together. It is a minority of staff that are moving. And they are fully clear about where they are going and what they will be doing. Ainsley Arnold, leader of Cheshire East Liberal Democrats, agreed that "everything is in place. It is exciting. This was conceived a long time ago but has come round very quickly," he said.

"We have needed a transition period for councillors to gain the experience. There are a lot of borough councillors, who haven’t had responsibility for issues like education and social services."

Coun Arnold believes residents will notice minimal change next Wednesday.

"The phone numbers will be the same and we hope for a seamless transition."

But Coun Brendan Murphy, who bows out with Macclesfield Borough Council on Wednesday, believes they face a "daunting task".

"I still believe it (Cheshire East) was the wrong decision but I wish them every success," he said. "I just fear officers and councillors do not realise how big a task it will be. Officers tell me they still don’t know what their jobs will be and that they will be ‘slotted in’, but the Westfields centre in Sandbach is nowhere near big enough. You cannot run an organisation that is fragmented and I predict they will be talking about needing a new centre within two years."

A ‘shadow’ council, made up of the 81 elected Cheshire East councillors, has been sitting on committees and attending a series of induction days over the past 12 months in preparation for April 1.

Chief executive Erika Wenzel, in an interview with the Express in January, said the council – the third biggest in the North West behind Manchester and Liverpool – will be "a big hitter on the regional scene" and stressed her priority was to make services more local for residents.

"I get the feeling that people are ready for a change and that a unitary council without the county above will be easier for people," she declared.