A Lancashire MP has suggested ways in which the county’s council areas could be merged - with one option involving Preston and Fylde ending up in the same local authority as Pendle.

Burnley MP Oliver Ryan released a document last week containing a raft of ideas about how to slash the overall number of councils from the current 15 to just three or four.

His blueprint emerged before - and is separate to - a letter sent to the government in which a majority of Lancashire’s Labour MPs called for a radical redrawing of the local authority map as part of a push to beef up the county’s current devolution deal.

Mr. Ryan alighted upon similar themes in his document, but went further than the letter to local government minister Jim McMahon by proposing which parts of the county could be bound together to form new standalone - so-called ‘unitary’ - authorities.

Under his preferred option, new councils would be created out of the areas currently covered by:

*** Preston Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire;

***Blackpool, Fylde, Wyre and Lancaster and

***Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Ribble Valley, Pendle, Rossendale and Hyndburn.

Such a set-up would create authorities with between 503,000 and 556,000 residents.

However, the Labour MP also suggested an alternative four-council option, which would generate population sizes of between 353,000 and 420,000 per authority. In that scenario, the areas that would join up would be:

***Preston, Fylde, Ribble Valley and Pendle;

***Blackpool, Lancaster and Wyre;

***Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire and

***Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Rossendale and Hyndburn.

In the document setting out his vision for the “rationalisation” of Lancashire’s councils, Mr. Ryan acknowledges that the geography of some of the alternative options is “interesting”, but stresses the financial stability of all the suggestions as a result of separating out the larger population centres of Preston, Blackburn and Preston into different council areas.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service about his ideas, he said he was sure people would have suggestions of their own - but that his aim was simply to spark “a conversation about the effectiveness of public services”.

He conceded that a Preston-Fylde-Ribble Valley-Pendle authority would be "long". There is a distance of more than 50 miles between Lytham in Fylde and Barnoldswick in Pendle.

Mr. Ryan said he believes local authority reorganisation and the creation of an elected mayor are necessary components of how Lancashire moves forward.

“It's set a few hares running - but I think it's a necessary conversation, because we're missing out.

“There's a big [discussion] going on about the regions and nations of the UK having a council under this government - and Lancashire is nowhere near it, we're not even in the room.”

He also said that the Lancashire County Council elections, due next May should be cancelled so as not to "waste" the £2m it costs to stage them - given that the authority could be abolished in the near future depending on progress towards a deepening of the county's devolution arrangements, which the Labour government has said it hopes to see set in train by next autumn.

Speaking specifically about the MPs' letter last week, Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown said he first wanted to see "the final details" about possible reorganisation when new government legislation is published.

He added: "At this early stage, an attempt should be made through [the] Lancashire Leaders [group] to try and achieve consensus, with support from the Local Government Association or other appropriate bodies around structure, numbers and size of councils if restructuring is taking place.

“I feel an imposition from central government - without a further and final attempt to get agreement on new structures - won't be well received across the county. If agreement cannot be found there may be no choice, but councils should come up with their own proposals to government first,” Cllr Brown said.