Mayor Rochelle Porteous says the answer was a resounding no. Leichhardt will now be putting in a submission on June 30 to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Authority that it is strong enough to stand alone.

Over in Woollahra, different tactics are being deployed to fend off unwanted advances from neighbouring Randwick and Waverley councils, the only adjoining councils who have publicly supported a merger.

The council has hired a public relations firm and rounded up  its high profile residents, including former Roosters captain Anthony Minichiello​ and businessman John Symonds of Aussie Home Loans to advocate for a standalone council.

Woollahra has relatively low rates compared to its neighbours and brochures now being stuffed in letterboxes throughout the municipality warn ratepayers face hikes of  22 to 53 per cent.  "If amalgamation means higher rates, I am against it,"Symond said this week.

But their fight to stay solo just became a whole lot harder. On Friday IPART issued its final assessment methodology and answered the $64 question: does "sufficient  scale and capacity" – the threshold criteria to be applied by IPART – mean there is a population target?

The answer appears to be yes – but not one size fits all.

"We will be guided by the population estimates for a particular local government area included in the Independent Local Government Review Panel's recommended options," IPART said.

For Leichhardt  (population 55,561), that means achieving a population of about 330,000. For Woollahra ( population 56,324) it means a target of 500,000 – the combined populations of the recommended merger clusters.

The onus is on the council to show how it meets the strategic capacity requirements, if it chooses a different option, IPART said.  This could be standalone or a different merger but  this must be at least as good, or better than the merger proposal, IPART says.

The government's push for council amalgamations in greater Sydney is being driven by concerns that city councils do not have the "scale and capacity" to tackle the strategic planning challenges the city will face in the future.

"Sydney is the fastest growing capital city in Australia. In the next 20 years, a further 2 million people will make the city their home, with most of them settling in Sydney's west. Our city is being constrained by too much red tape," Local Government Minister Paul Toole​ said in a written response to questions from The Sydney Morning Herald.

He said that the government had responded to calls from local government for assistance and provided three years of research, and a reform package of up to $1 billion, to support and partner with councils across the state. "Now it's up to councils to take the next step," he said.

But many councillors believe other agendas are at play.  Larger councils will potentially make it harder for small parties, such as the Greens, or independents to control councils,  because they will have to cover a bigger voter base. Strong councils fear their weaker neighbours are trying to make a grab for their rates and finances, and in some cases lucrative business areas.  Others fear the agenda is being driven by developers who want to expand into areas that have resisted high rise and medium density.

The evidence that bigger councils are better is equivocal, according to the Australian Centre of  Excellence for Local Government at UTS.

"Population size is a contested indicator of local government performance. In general, research and debate about an optimum size (population) ... have  been  inconclusive, and there remain strongly opposed views as to whether larger amalgamated councils enjoy  significant economies of scales," the centre submitted to IPART this week.

Nowhere is the anti-merger sentiment stronger  than in the Liberal heartland of the North Shore and Northern Beaches.

Of the 12 councils north of the bridge, only two are in favour of mergers, and they are the two larger ones: Hornsby and Warringah. (Interestingly, both have been more prepared to embrace medium density development as part of their housing mix than their neighbours.)

The vast bulk of north shore councils are between 30,000 and 60,000 and are controlled by independents who run on intensely local platforms which often involve keeping development out of the suburbs and giving priority to the current needs of residents. Part of the government's agenda in promoting mergers is undoubtedly to break down this "not in my backyard" attitude.

The counter argument  is put succinctly by Mosman Council's mayor, Peter Abelson, who argued that IPART was overlooking what is important to residents. "While we agree that councils need strategic capacity in one or other way, equally or more importantly a council needs to be able to provide desired local public services to its local community.

"It is inappropriate to elevate weakly defined strategic capacity over other equally or more important objectives and capacities."

With community meetings now attracting turnouts of 100 or more, local Liberals are feeling the heat. In Pittwater, where the council seceded from Warringah Council in 1992, the local community is vigorously opposed to reuniting with its southern neighbours Warringah and Manly. The proposal  for a six-way merger of lower north shore councils is equally unpopular, particularly in Ryde, which would be split between Parramatta and the new North Shore Council.

Submissions are due on June 30, which will leave Sydney councils with some soul searching to do.