BATTLE lines were drawn this week over the future of local government, as politicians in south Wiltshire gave their reactions to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's plan for regional assemblies.

A 112-page white paper Your Region - Your Choice - sets out proposals to establish eight directly elected assemblies across England, including one for the South West that would embrace Salisbury and the rest of Wiltshire.

It would mean the abolition of one of the existing tiers of local government - almost certainly Wiltshire county council and other shire authorities in the region - and the establishment of a South West "parliament", based either in Exeter or Taunton.

People will be given a choice in a referendum to decide whether or not to go down the regional assembly road and, if they vote, 'yes', an assembly for the South West will be elected by proportional representation.

It will have 25-35 members and cover an area stretching to Lands End and including the counties of Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucester-shire, Avon, Devon and Cornwall.

Both Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors locally have backed the assembly idea, but it has been condemned by the Conservatives as an expensive and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

Robert Key, Tory MP for Salisbury, said: "I am opposed in principle to regional government because, whichever way you look at it, people will have pay for more politicians and officials.

"The suggestion that Salisbury and district be governed as part of a huge area from Taunton or Exeter makes no sense.

"Salisbury would always be on the very edge and would lose out as a result."