DISTRICT councils facing the axe are today expected to unveil plans to hold a referendum to gauge the views of people in County Durham.

All seven councils are banding together to fight Government proposals to replace the existing two-tier system with one council serving the county.

They are understood to be planning to hire a firm of election specialists to carry out a poll of county residents.

The six Labour-controlled and one Liberal Democrat-run authorities are lining up against Durham County Council in a fight for survival.

The districts, which want to keep the existing system of councils, believe that a referendum would probably show there was little appetite for change among the county's residents.

A spokeswoman for the districts said: "Two separate telephone surveys commissioned by Durham County Council and the district councils revealed more than 70 per cent of residents responding across the county are against the proposal for a single unitary authority.

"This figure is even higher in some parts of the county.

"The district councils feel it is important to canvass not only the views of key stakeholders, as intended by the Government, but to give the public a chance to have their say on whether the proposal should be implemented.

"In every other review of local government, the views of the public have always been taken into account.

"There is a real danger that this time, people will not be given the opportunity to air their views about what happens to their council and the services it provides.''

But Albert Nugent, the Labour leader of the county council, said a referendum would be a "costly distraction to the main focus of debate".

He said it could produce no binding outcome because it was not Government-sanctioned, would give people no greater say on the proposals than they already have, and would be a waste of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money.

He said: "It would amount to nothing more than a large-scale opinion poll, which will not answer the questions that the Government is posing."