Section 3 – Proposals for merger
6.Section 3 enables two or more principal local authorities to make a joint application to the Welsh Ministers, by 30 November 2015 or by another date specified by the Welsh Ministers through regulations, proposing that the authorities come together through voluntary merger to create a new principal local authority. The decision to make an application will have to be made by the full council of each of the local authorities making the joint application; subsection (3) means this is a function which may not be discharged by the executives of those local authorities.
7.Section 3(4) provides that an application under section 3(1) includes an application made to the Welsh Ministers before section 3 of the Act came into force.