Well, we knew it was coming – here:
“New proposals to make it easier to get local leaders to hold a referendum on their leadership structure, putting communities firmly in control of their town and council, has been published for consultation by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.”
It is particularly interesting that these votes will be on the chosen structure of local government. It appears to be an extension of the idea that ‘constitutional change’ is a suitable subject for referendums.
(Oh, one other thing: I know I should know this, but can someone give me a final ruling? I’ve never been certain – is the plural of ‘referendum’ really ‘referenda’?)
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
As someone with a degree in classics from Cambridge (really, as it happens) I can assure you it’s referendums, in the same way that an agenda with one item on is not an agendum. There’s too much Latin pluralising around and it doesn’t add anything.