Lancashire’s districts could now go from being bystanders to deal-makers
Lancashire seems destined for a showdown over devolution after the county’s district councils split along party lines and wrote to the government outlining competing visions for the kind of deal they want to see. The dozen second-tier authorities in the county are divided over whether a provisional agreement struck with the previous Tory government should be implemented as it stands or renegotiated.
The current fissure is just the latest in a long line of divisions to have opened up in Lancashire over devolution – a subject which has defied consensus between the county’s 15 local authorities, sometimes regardless of party affiliation, at almost every turn during the eight years that efforts have been made to find it.
However, Chorley Council’s Labour leader Alistair Bradley, says that while he is ambivalent about a mayor, it would be “nonsense” to reject the concept outright – because of its bearing on the kind of deal Lancashire might be able to strike. “Our residents have missed out because certain individuals in Lancashire don’t want a mayor – and I don’t think that’s fair on those populations. To me, it’s about what the opportunity is for Lancashire – and what we actually want, as opposed to what we don’t want."
Speaking to the LDRS, he also warned that attempts to negotiate a new agreement before the provisional one had been implemented would serve only to create deadlock over devolution: “We’d just go back to squabbling amongst ourselves and the government would disengage with us – and that would be a huge mistake.
Cllr Bradley rubbished the claim that the government had “a deadline” for deals to be done by the end of September, stating that the autumn timeframe was just for proposals to be submitted. But he said it was “feasible” for a fully renegotiated Lancashire devolution agreement to be on table by April 2025.
At that time, Lancashire County Council suggested its own abolition and that of the 14 other local authorities. In their place would have come three so-called “unitary” councils covering central and southern parts of the county , a broad western and northern area and the east .
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