THE Government's pledge to give more powers to local councils across the country has been given a cautious welcome in Oxfordshire.

But the White Paper published by Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, will have failed to satisfy those wanting moves towards a wholesale reorganisation of local government with the eventual abolition of Oxfordshire County Council.

The abandonment of a big-bang approach to local councils will have dented Oxford City Council's long-held hopes of becoming a unitary authority.

Oxford City Council had joined forces with councils in Exeter, Norwich and Ipswich in a bid to try to convince the Government that they should run all services in their cities.

But Oxfordshire County Council responded with warnings that speculation about the future of County Hall was destabilising local government across the county.

The leader of Oxfordshire County Council, Keith Mitchell, said the White Paper suggested the Government had listened to council demands for additional decision-making powers "The Government is making the right noises. It seems to have heard the case about localism, allowing more decisions to be made locally.

"Allowing us to make by-laws is welcome. But we have not heard anything about funding."

The city's move to unitary status has cross-party support and the backing of Oxford East MP Andrew Smith, who said it was necessary on the grounds of public accountability.

But Tory leader David Cameron - and most Conservatives locally - have branded the reorganisation "gerrymandering" which would harm their party's interests.

City council leader John Goddard said: "To have a two-tier system is a recipe for confusion and tension.

"On good democratic grounds the system needs to be a lot clearer and more evidently accountable.

"We have a dominant Tory county that seems all too often to disregard the needs and wishes of the people in Oxford city - and that situation is reflected in the lack of Tory representation in the city."

Meanwhile, a new report by senior academic Michael Chisholm, Emeritus Professor of Geography at Cambridge University, has concluded that the review of the case for unitary status commissioned by the cities of Norwich, Exeter, Oxford and Ipswich was seriously flawed in both its evidence and in its conclusions.

It said a number of critical issues were insufficiently addressed, including cost.

Prof Chisholm said that the set-up costs for new unitary authorities in each of the four cities would be quite substantial - between £11.3m and £17.2m for each authority.