Over half (59 per cent) of the 500 respondents of a telephone survey on regional government said they were happy with City of York Council's existing boundary.

The results come from a survey conducted by the council to gauge residents' views on possible changes to the council's boundary.

The council has to explain its views on any potential boundary change to the Boundary Committee before Monday, 8 September, though changes will only happen if residents in Yorkshire and Humberside vote 'yes' for regional government. Residents living within North Yorkshire district council areas will get the opportunity to vote on any boundary changes, though under the government's current proposals, people in York will not.

An overwhelming majority of respondents (93 per cent) said that if there were proposed changes to the council's boundary, local residents should be able to vote on them and over half (54 per cent) said that they were opposed to regional government.

Over half of those asked (51 per cent) said that they thought the council's services would become worse if its boundary increased in size and nearly 40 per cent of residents said that a proposed boundary change would make them less likely to support regional government.

The results of the survey will be fed into the council's submission to the Boundary Committee.

Senior councillors are expected to confirm that the council will not support a change to its boundary, at a meeting of the Executive on Tuesday, 2 September.