Local authorities across the country have warned that Brexit could lead to billions of pounds of funding shortfalls, infrastructure projects unable to be signed off, threats to public services and projected rises in homelessness, poverty and unemployment, according to a new series of impact assessments obtained by BuzzFeed News.



Analyses produced by 21 councils, released for the first time under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that they have expressed detailed concerns at the damage leaving the European Union will have on their communities and businesses. Many of the areas covered by the disclosures voted heavily for Leave.

The responses also reveal anger among councils that their warnings are being ignored by the government.

In Leave-voting Cornwall, which has been at the heart of the Brexit debate over claims it is one of the most vulnerable rural areas in the UK and could run out of food within days in the event of no deal, the council’s service director Jessie Hamshar was scathing about central government’s response and the sidelining of the Department of Communities and Local Government from the planning process.



“Local government was promised a seat at the table,” Hamshar is quoted as saying in evidence to a select committee hearing referenced in one of the disclosures. “It is not clear even where the table is never mind what the seat is. If you look at the five committees that have been set up, even at a ministerial level the DCLG Secretary of State is represented at only one of them”.

The document noted that this "seems to be the view of the sector as a whole".