PLANS which are likely to lead to the Craven district being scrapped have been unveiled in a Government memo - just months after a similar plan for local government reform was decisively rejected at the ballot box.

In the memorandum which emerged this week, the Government revealed it wanted to scrap the two tier system of district and county councils, which locally consists of the Craven and North Yorkshire authorities.

David Milliband, the local government minister, said the existing set-up was wasteful and confusing.

The Government's doomed bid last year to set up regional assemblies also envisaged the disappearance of Craven district, with a favoured system of a new, all-purpose authority: either more power for the county council - based at Northallerton - or merging Craven with Harrogate. There would be one council - a so-called unitary authority - running all local affairs.

Those plans, it seemed, were over when the first referendum for a regional assembly, held in the North East, rejected the scheme so overwhelmingly that plans to roll it out into Yorkshire were abandoned.

However, the prospect of a local government reform has been resurrected by Mr Milliband's memo, which suggests that rather than being imposed from the top, local authorities should themselves consider how to provide "stronger strategic leadership" and more cost-efficient services.

It states that two tiers of local councils creates waste, duplication and a failure in co-ordination.

Craven is widely considered to be too small to become a unitary authority. While it handles matters such as planning, waste collection and environmental health, it is unlikely to be allowed to run services currently controlled by the county council, such as highways, education and social services.

The alternatives, a more powerful North Yorkshire County Council or a merger with Harrogate are virtually certain to lead to administrative control being moved out of the district to Northallerton or Harrogate, thus making the system appear more remote to many council tax payers. If the Government does proceed with the plan, local authorities will have to move quickly - the memo suggests councils should have just three months to come up with solution "in order to minimise argument and disruption".