Despite fears raised in the national press, Portsmouth’s council leader has insisted the city’s status will be protected.

Portsmouth will not lose its city status as part of the Government’s council shake up plans, the council leader has said.

Following recent reports in the national press about historic cities such as Winchester and Canterbury potentially losing their status, the leader of Portsmouth City Council has ruled it out.

Under Angela Rayner’s plans as the local government secretary, the current two tier system will be replaced with large councils in a process called Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).

It would replace the current system of local government, where county and district councils share services, with large unitary authorities which provide all services.

The Labour Government says LGR will simplify local government, reduce duplication and create larger councils capable of delivering services more efficiently.

It argues that replacing two tier systems with unitary authorities will strengthen local government financially, improve accountability and deliver better value for taxpayers, while supporting wider devolution plans.

Portsmouth is facing a merger with Fareham, Gosport and Havant to become a new authority touted as ‘South East Hampshire’, which sparked outrage from Portsmouth’s council leader, who believed the city’s identity was being erased.

Cities merging into larger unitary authorities will need to set up ‘charter trustees’ to continue using their city title and coat of arms.

However, this would incur fees and potentially drive up council tax bills, with cities that fail to do this potentially losing their status.

Winchester could be affected, which once served as the capital of England.

The council leader said he would do “whatever it takes” to protect the Winchester’s status, avoiding the fate of Rochester, which lost its status after a previous shake up and never regained it.

Councillor Steve Pitt, leader of Portsmouth City Council, thinks it is “baloney” that Winchester or any city would lose its status.

“You have to write into the structural change order proposals that retain your city status, if you don’t do that you will lose it.

“You have to make sure you do the appropriate paper work, we’re fully aware of it – we’re going to make sure we retain our city status and our Lord Mayor.

“PCC will have to cover the costs won’t they because the labour government has decided to dump us into the catastrophe that is LGR.

“They haven’t even given us any advice – they had a meeting with officers to go an take legal advice on how to do this, they have offered no support whatsoever.

“There’s a bit of sensationalising going on – there’s been lots of rounds of LGR and once has a city has lost it’s city status and that’s because they forgot to do it.”