Heart of Wessex - strategic mayoral authority proposed

[whole diary]

[grahame]

https://grahamellis.uk/blog1477.html

So we are to have a Mayor of Wessex!

It's the way the government wants us to go, and central funding to the regions is likely to be channelled through this mayor so we have little choice. As I read it, Richard Clewer, leader of Wiltshire council, may not be ecstatic about the way it's going but never the less is pragmatically accepting of the approach and is looking to make it work.

Transport, and buses in particular, are one of the big things to come to the mayor. Much of this already happening in Manchester and in the West Midlands.

So - Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. Not sure about Swindon yet? Population of around 1.5 million, characterised as temperate countryside with large and small towns sprinkled across them, but without and big cities. Much of the working population and economy looking just outside the area for its commercial centres - Swindon, Bath, Bristol, Bournemouth, Southampton. And then perhaps flows to Exeter and toward Oxford, Reading, Basingstoke, and London.

[ChrisB]

Swindon is in a quandary - whether to come with this deal or throw its lot in with the Oxfordshire option.

Oxford City is really finding itself out on its own. It needs the district councils around it to provide non-green-belt land for housing, but is an urban council amongst rural ones, and any larger grouping will outvote the urbanites

[eightonedee]

Oxford City is really finding itself out on its own. It needs the district councils around it to provide non-green-belt land for housing, but is an urban council amongst rural ones, and any larger grouping will outvote the urbanites

That is exactly the core problem with our current system of local government when it comes to planning, whether housing or transport. Unless you create authority boundaries that reflect broad travel-to-work areas, you are never going to get optimal regional or local planning. It is not quite as simple as it sounds, as in many more populated regions (especially the south-east, West Midlands and parts of the industrial north) these areas overlap.

I have a feeling that one of the reasons that this nettle has never been grasped is that it suits all three established national political parties - Labour knows it can retain councils like Reading and Oxford where the old borough boundaries exclude many more prosperous suburbs and the Conservatives and Lib Dems know that the outer suburban and rural areas outside are areas they can fight over without any risk of periods when those pesky Socialists can dump all their housing on them.

We have had a much more "fit for purpose" system of dividing up the country for over 50 years - the postcode areas, which reflect lines of communications. Whether the cost of a radical shake-up of boundaries to reflect this is justified is unclear - but I think we can be sure that Rachel Reeves won't find the necessary cash.

I remain astonished (and appalled) by the current fad in government for simply adding another layer of administration by adding mayoralities on top of the current system - why do they think that setting up another office and electing a mayor will suddenly solve all problems? It will not work if it's simply aggregations of local authority areas that are largely rooted in centuries-old history that bear little relationship to current economic realities and communications network. 

[ChrisB]

Not quite adding another layer, as they intend on abolishing both County & District council-levels of administration - leaving just Mayors & their cabinet/unitary authority plus parish councils where they exist.

[bradshaw]

Reading the GOV.UK^▸ (United Kingdom) documents it seems that the Mayoral Stategic Councils(Wessex) will head up the overall strategy on items like:

  Transport and local infrastructure
Skills and employment support 
Housing and strategic planning 
Economic development and regeneration
Environment and climate change
Health, wellbeing and public service reform
Public safety

The lower tier will consist of Unitary Authorities, such as Dorset Council, who will oversee  and implement those items which are peculiar to them. District Councils will merge with County Councils where this has not been done already.
I presume Parish Councils will continue as before.

[Clan Line]

Not quite adding another layer, as they intend on abolishing both County & District council-levels of administration - leaving just Mayors & their cabinet/unitary authority plus parish councils where they exist.

If I had a tenner for every variation of "Council" there has been in Wiltshire alone since I have had the pleasure of paying taxes.................I would be living it up on an exotic island in the Bahamas - or somewhere like that.  Does anyone actually believe that a Mayor led Authority will be any better, cheaper, more efficient, smarter, speedier than anything that preceded it ?  Local Authorities just seem to be copying the old maxim:  “You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility.”

Me cynical ?? - 'course not   

[eightonedee]

Posted by: ChrisB
Insert Quote
Not quite adding another layer, as they intend on abolishing both County & District council-levels of administration - leaving just Mayors & their cabinet/unitary authority plus parish councils where they exist.

As Bradshaw has said, that's not what's on the Gov.uk website, and in the areas where there are already mayors, there are some where the mayoral authority sits atop an old-fashioned two tier system. The lucky voters and ratepayers of South Cambridgeshire have their own district council, a joint South Cambs/City of Cambridge planning team, Cambridgeshire County Council and the mayor of Peterborough and Cambridgeshire.

So - there will still be lower-level councils dealing with waste collection, education and children's services, adult social services, council tax collection, benefits administered at a local level, highways maintenance and repair and public rights of way, parks and recreation, and "non-strategic" planning - in other words, actually processing most planning applications. It is not difficult to see the mayoral authority and decision-making planning authority in conflict over planning decisions.

[ChrisB]

Interestingly, South Cambridgeshire may find itself alone in those levels of authorities - certainly the discussion here in Oxfordshire is for a unitary & Mayoral authority of the same area with one set of elections, having combined county & district councils into it, plus or minus Swindon if they are interested in joining. At the moment, the County & districts are all in, Oxford City aren't. Swindon as yet undecided.

[ellendune]

Swindon is in a quandary - whether to come with this deal or throw its lot in with the Oxfordshire option.

Oxford City is really finding itself out on its own. It needs the district councils around it to provide non-green-belt land for housing, but is an urban council amongst rural ones, and any larger grouping will outvote the urbanites

Interestingly, South Cambridgeshire may find itself alone in those levels of authorities - certainly the discussion here in Oxfordshire is for a unitary & Mayoral authority of the same area with one set of elections, having combined county & district councils into it, plus or minus Swindon if they are interested in joining. At the moment, the County & districts are all in, Oxford City aren't. Swindon as yet undecided.

Looking at the functions of the combined authority:

  Transport and local infrastructure
Skills and employment support 
Housing and strategic planning 
Economic development and regeneration
Environment and climate change
Health, wellbeing and public service reform
Public safety

For

Transport and Infrastructure
Housing and strategic planning
Health, wellbeing

Geography means Swindon really needs to be in with the rest of Wiltshire

For Public Safety would really mean that Swindon would have to move out of Wiltshire Police and join Thames Valley where they would be a marginal backwater. That would probably make the Wiltshire force unviable.

For Skills and employment support and for Economic development and regeneration I believe Swindon think they would be better with Oxfordshire, but I suggest that again they would be a marginalised outpost of an otherwise booming area.

For Environment and Climate Change it probably makes no difference. 

[John D]

BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole), which previously merged from its namesakes, has voted 43 to 12 (and 4 abstentions) to join the Heart of Wessex devolution group.   

It seemed joining the Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth, Isle of Wight proposal isn't happening.   
Historically (before 1974) Bournemouth and Christchurch were in Hampshire.

Dorset + Wilts + Somerset + BCP would comfortably reach Governments approx 1.5m population for devolved area, regardless of if Swindon chooses to join