PLANS to force councils to merge may be delayed by up to ten years according to Carmarthenshire County Council leader, Emlyn Dole.

The Welsh Government had suggested the number of councils in Wales be reduced from 22 to around eight or nine.

Mr Dole claims to have been offered reassurances by new Local Government Secretary, Mark Drakeford, that Carmarthenshire County Council "will remain for at least 10 years".

He added: "The authorities will remain, unless they themselves want to merge. But there will be more of a regional footprint - working together on a regional level."

Shadow Secretary for Local Government, Janet Finch-Saunders, is now calling for “certainty and continuity”.

She said: “If Labour’s planned council mergers have been shelved for up to a decade then it will be very humbling indeed for the First Minister, whose government used up a lot of capital trying to force them through.

“Instead of starting the process with a radical review of the services provided by local authorities, Labour ministers became pre-occupied with the geography of the new council map – which was completely the wrong way around.

“The Welsh Government need to bring forward a statement at the earliest opportunity outlining their plans for local government reform.

“In the short term, Welsh councils need certainty and continuity, and it’s just not good enough to leave these doubts hanging in the ether.”

UKIP assembly group leader Neil Hamilton accused Labour Welsh Government ministers of having "no ambition or drive" to improve people's lives.

"It is utterly bizarre that we can make all the arrangements needed to leave the EU within two years, but it will take local councils more than 10 years to agree on joint working for tasks like rubbish collection or pot-hole filling," he said.