More than half the people in York want their local authority boundary to stay the same, according to a new survey.

Fifty nine per cent of the 500 respondents to a telephone survey on regional government said they were happy with City of York Council's boundary.

The research was conducted by the council to gauge residents' views on changes to the boundary should the Yorkshire and Humberside region back regional government at the forthcoming referendum.

People in other districts of North Yorkshire will have the opportunity to vote on boundary changes, though under the Government's current proposals, those in York will not.

However, 93 per cent of survey respondents said that if changes were proposed to the council's boundary, they should be able to vote on them and 54 per cent were opposed to regional government.

A total of 51 per cent said they thought council services would deteriorate if its boundary increased, and nearly 40 per cent said a boundary change would make them less likely to support regional government.

Senior councillors are expected to confirm that the authority will not support a change to its boundary, at a meeting of the executive tomorrow.