A plan has been agreed that could save two district councils more than £500,000 by sharing services.

Members of Huntingdonshire District Council’s and South Cambridgeshire District Council’s cabinets approved a strategic partnership on Thursday that will see them share building control, legal and ICT services.

Cambridge City Council on Monday also considered a report to join the partnership, sharing legal and ICT services.

A detailed business case will be drawn up for consideration in autumn, as well as a further report into building control, which could include forming a new company for Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire to carry out building inspections.

HDC executive leader Councillor Jason Ablewhite said: “The main objective of this ­exciting new partnership is to ensure we can rise to the ­significant financial challenge ahead of us as funding continues to be cut by government.

“However, as both South Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire are among the fastest growing areas in the ­country, I firmly believe we will also have a stronger and united voice on common and vital issues such as the A14 and A428.

“This is just the start and the hard work now continues to ensure we make the partnership a huge success.”

Cllr Ray Manning, leader of SCDC, said: “We are delighted to formalise the strategic partnership with Huntingdonshire District Council as we firmly believe this will put us in a very good position to tackle the ­challenge ahead of us.

“We’ve already delivered around £5million of savings over recent years, but a new approach is needed to ensure we can continue to serve our ­communities and provide the services they want and need.

“A lot of the hard work has been carried out to get us to this stage and I look forward to finalising some of the business cases in the coming months and getting the first shared services in place.”

Details about the full scale of savings – as well as potential job losses – will be known once the business case has been completed.