Mr Castrilli caused a furore last year when he sent a letter to the two Wheatbelt shires urging them to consider amalgamating with more surrounding councils by forming a ‘regional transition group’.

Both shires said they would stick by their initial proposal to amalgamate and asked Mr Castrilli to meet with them, which he did when he flew to Westonia on January 29.

Yilgarn Shire chief executive Peter Clarke said the outcome of the meeting was positive.

“It went very well and we’re extremely pleased with what he had to say, which was that he supports the proposal by the two shires to merge,” he said.

“The minister has even said he would be pleased to provide some initial funding to assist in the process.

“So we are glad that this decision has been made so we can now move forward with the process of amalgamating.

“Both councils have to get together and work on a strategy for when and how the actual merge is going to take place.

“Our initial discussion paper talked about our potential organisational structure, such as where to locate the new shire office or offices, but that was only a draft.

“What we can guarantee is that all staff apart from the two chief executives are guaranteed their positions for two years following a merge.”

Westonia Shire chief executive Bill Price said he was also pleased with the outcome of the meeting.

“Because of our voluntary merge, Mr Castrilli has promised that we will not be required to participate in the regional transitional group process, which he’s requiring of the other local governments.

“Mr Castrilli has also indicated that the department will assist with resourcing our merge.

“That makes me glad that we did volunteer to amalgamate and we feel that we’ve made the right decision.”

But he said there would be a lot of work ahead before the merge could be completed.

“Although we submitted our proposal, there are still a lot of things we have to agree upon.

“But we were expecting that and we will be asking for resources to help with the merge.”