Lancashire's devolution deal moves forward but council leaders blast 'breach of trust' over who has a say
A government minister will be among a delegation of Whitehall officials who will travel to Lancashire in the coming weeks to start preliminary talks over how the county can secure a long-awaited devolution deal, the Local Democracy Reporting Service can reveal.
Under government rules, only so-called top-tier councils can be members of a CCA – in Lancashire’s case, that would mean just the county council and the authorities covering Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen would sit at the top table. The latest bump in the road comes after Lancashire’s 15 councils appeared finally to have smoothed a path towards the additional freedoms and funding that they all seek, but the related terms of which have led to countless local quarrels down the years.
“We have a great deal to put to government, an opportunity to bring millions of extra pounds in investment and support – and that can be secured, in my view, without the need for local government reform [reducing the number of councils in the area] and without the need to create an elected mayor. However, if the government switch to focusing on Lancashire – announced by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove at the Convention of the North event earlier this year – has been born out of the apparent consensus that the county had reached within its own sprawling borders, then it will be important that that unanimity does not crack.
While some Lancashire leaders have been more comfortable than others with the concept of an elected mayor – and even merging and reducing the current number of council areas – the county has only been able to progress at the speed of the most circumspect of its constituent parts. However, when the government’s Levelling Up and Devolution Bill was published last year, the apparent ‘anything goes’ approach of Boris Johnson, had been replaced with a more rigid offering. While a suite of deal types and governance arrangements were contained within it, the no-mayor-no-local-government-reorganisation option wanted by Lancashire required the creation of a combined county authority .
South Ribble Borough Council leader Paul Foster told the LDRS that in pursuing that path, Lancashire County Council Conservative leader Phillippa Williamson had “destroyed” the collaborative relationship with the 12 district authorities which had worked on the Lancashire 2050 strategy. Meanwhile, Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown shared his neighbour’s frustrations over the CCA proposal – and the ambition of the deal that the county is trying to secure.
The LDRS understands that at least some district leaders were given just an hour’s notice of the statement made about the CCA at County Hall last week.
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