The Local Government Commission [LGC] was set up in 1992 to conduct a peripatetic review of the make-up of local government across England's shires, where a two-tier county plus district structure prevails.But political anxiety that this process would create a running sore in the government's side led ministers to truncate the review by announcing last September that the LGC would complete its work by the end of 1994, instead of 1997 as originally planned.

The new councils would be in place by 1996.At the same time, policy guidance to the commission on how it should conduct the review was changed to help the acceleration, and to place greater emphasis on the creation of single-tier authorities.The litigious sap is rising among the councils already reviewed: one senior local government lawyer has nominated the local government review for a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the greatest number of legal challenges prompted by a single adminstrative process.In the High Court, Mr Justice Laws has granted leave to both Derbyshire and Lancashire county councils to challenge actions of Envir onment Secretary John Gummer.

Lancashire's case was heard on Monday and Tuesday and the Derbyshire hearing begins today.Max Winterbottom, deputy clerk with Lancashire, said the county's argument was that the revised guidance published by Mr Gummer was too prescriptive and fettered the statutory discretion of the LGC.If Lancashire is successful, the Department of the Environment's guidance will be declared unlawful and will have to be amended or replaced with new guidance, and the review of the county area conducted yet again.For its part, Derbyshire will assert that Mr Gummer's decision -- that the commission should conduct a second review of the area using the new guidance -- was unlawful.According to Derbyshire, the Local Government Act 1992 says it is for the commission to decide whether change is needed and, if so, to identify the most appropriate future council structure.But, it adds, the revised guidance made a switch to unitary councils all the more likely by asserting that the status quo should be the exception rather than the rule.Derbyshire County Council says that these new ground-rules limit the commission's independence.Meanwhile, Cleveland County Council is seeking judicial review of actions by the commission itself.

According to deputy county secretary David Ashton, the LGC's conclusion (now supported by Mr Gummer) that there should be four unitary councils in the area is 'perverse on the weight of evidence'.Cleveland is arguing for two single-tier authorities -- Harlepool and Teesside -- to replace the existing county and four districts.Chief executive Bruce Stevenson says: 'We believe that [the commission] has failed properly to have regard to the 1992 Act and to the secretary of state's guidance in a number of key areas.'Meanwhile, Somerset County Council is also to seek leave for judicial review of the LGC's actions -- in this case a recommendation that the county should be replaced by three unitary councils.The county will argue that the plans fail to meet criteria set down in the commission's guidance for community identity, effective local government and meeting the wishes of the people.Somerset county solicitor John Whittcutt has pointed to the LGC's own published evidence, based on MORI polls, which showed that 70% backed the retention of some form of county-wide authority, while only 19% supported the commission's three council option.Mendip District Council is supporting the Somerset action with an affidavit arguing that the commision's recommendations are 'unreasonable on the basis of the available data'.Somerset is also receiving support from Wells City Council and Street Town Council, two parish authorities opposed to the commission's recommendations.The Department of the Environment has rejected suggestions that its policy was running into trouble: 'We have absolutely no response to speculation that the review might be in jeopardy.'But Alan Fraser, county solicitor at Cumbria and current chairman of the Society of County Secretaries, compares the present situation with the last restructuring of the shires in the 1960's, which only prompted one legal action.

That review was eventually abandoned due to political fatigue and replaced by the Royal Commission under Redcliffe-Maud which conceived the much maligned 1974 re-organisation.Mr Fraser is not sanguine about the prospects for Sir John Banham's efforts.

'If any [of the judicial reviews] succeed, it could have a pretty severe effect on the progress of the review .

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It's beginning to be said that the review might no t last the course.'Dudley Lewis, city clerk at Bristol and chairman of the Law Society's Local Government Group, takes a less apocalyptic view, but does voice concern about the de-stabilising effects of uncertainty about the LGC's future on legal departments' ability to prepare for compulsory competition.The council at Bristol is itself unhappy with an LGC recommendation that it should not have bigger boundaries after restructuring.

Representations are being made to the secretary of state and -- yes -- judicial review has not been ruled out.Isle of Wight County Council, the first area reviewed by the commission, is eagerly awaiting the laying of the parliamentary orders that will convert it into the unitary Isle of Wight Council from April 1995.According to the deputy county secretary, Mike Fisher: 'It seems that there is, if the litigation succeeds, a real possibility of the whole process being delayed.'