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Five Lancashire district council leaders have called for the county’s devolution deal to be renegotiated with the new government – with two of them also pushing for an elected mayor in order to strengthen the agreement.
The Labour leaders of Preston, Chorley, West Lancashire, Rossendale and Hyndburn councils have told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that the deal struck late last year between the previous Conservative administration and Lancashire County Council, Blackpool Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council should now be revisited.
Preston’s Matthew Brown and Chorley’s Alistair Bradley also explicitly called for an Andy-Burnham-style mayor to be introduced as a means of enabling Lancashire to secure more powers and cash from Whitehall.
Read more: Lancashire devolution discussions back on table with renewed push for elected mayor likely
All five leaders were speaking as Lancashire waited to hear whether the new Labour government would implement the county’s existing devolution agreement, which was put on ice – just weeks before it was likely to be brought into effect by parliamentary legislation – as a result of the snap general election. As the LDRS revealed earlier, no decision has been taken over whether to honour that deal or attempt to redraw it.
Newly-installed ministers will be mulling over their options against a backdrop of varying degrees of disquiet amongst the total seven Labour-run district councils in Lancashire – along with the Labour opposition group on Tory-controlled Lancashire County Council – about the scale of the devolved power the current deal provides.
However, even those leaders united in their opposition to the present agreement are not necessarily on the same page as to whether it should now be implemented and then amended – or consigned to history and the process started again from scratch.
Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown told the LDRS that it was a choice that will “have to be considered” – while the Chorley, West Lancashire and Hyndburn leaders all suggested the deal should be scrapped outright.
Cllr Brown said: “In Preston, we have made clear our dissatisfaction with both the lack of ambition with the current devolution deal as well as the exclusion of district councils from it.
“With a new government there will hopefully be opportunities to do things differently. I believe we should be looking at an elected mayor of Lancashire, for significant new powers, as well as giving all our councils in Lancashire a meaningful say through devolution.
“I will be exploring the best way to achieve this with colleagues over the coming weeks and months, “ he added.
Alistair Bradley, the leader of Chorley Council, said he would also be happy to agree to a mayor if that was what delivered “the best deal for Lancashire”.
However, he was resolute that the agreement as it stands should be ditched and discussions between all 15 Lancashire leaders and the government reopened.
Much of the dissatisfaction of Labour-run district councils with Lancashire’s provisional devolution deal stemmed not only from what they regarded as its limited scope, but also their lack of involvement in negotiating it – and what they felt was going to be their barely perceptible role in putting it into practice.
Just two out of Lancashire’s dozen district authorities, of all political hues, would have a seat on the new Combined County Authority (CCA) to be created in order to oversee the devolved powers – and, as associate members, they would not have a vote under the agreement as it stands.
Cllr Bradley pointed to the consensus reached across the county two years ago when all levels of local government co-operated to draw up the Lancashire 2050 framework, which set out the region’s priorities for the decades to come – and which was presented at the time as being the basis for a future devolution settlement. However, the longstanding Chorley leader said some councils would not get their perfect deal as part of any renegotiation of the present arrangement – and warned that all parties needed to recognise that reality.
“The government needs to ask Lancashire what [it] wants – and to accept that you won’t get universal agreement. Then it should have the courage of its convictions and go with the majority and with what most people will accept – not what everybody wants.
“You will end up with a far better deal [that way] and, to me, a far better deal looks more like something Greater Manchester and Liverpool have got than the Lancashire agreement – which is the cheap, budget, poor-quality option,” Cllr Bradley said.
Meanwhile, West Lancashire Borough Council leader Yvonne Gagen told the LDRS she would “not like to see the current devolution deal go forward”, adding that it needed “renegotiating for a better [one]”.
Munsif Dad, Hyndburn Council’s leader, echoed that sentiment, saying: “The deal must be renegotiated.”
He added: “We are in favour of devolution, but not in its current form. We cannot support the current offer. Hyndburn residents should benefit from devolution in the same way that residents of other areas who have received stronger offers will.”
Rossendale Council leader Alyson Barnes said that the change of government “presents a good opportunity to renegotiate the Lancashire deal and for the deal to be more inclusive of district councils and far more ambitious in its range and scope”.
“We need to offer the people of Lancashire the same opportunities as elsewhere,” Cllr Barnes said.
The new government’s decision on whether to honour the existing deal or start all over again will be complicated by the fact that two of its three local authority signatories – Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen councils – are Labour-controlled.
As the LDRS also revealed this week, both of those authorities – together with the Conservative administration at County Hall – are keen to see the current agreement delivered in the first instance, regardless of what else may be on offer at a later date from the new government, which has made no secret of its enthusiasm for mayoral deals.
Before Lancashire’s provisional deal had even been signed at a special ceremony at Lancaster castle last November, the seven Labour-controlled districts and coalition-run Burnley Council had written to the government to express their dissatisfaction with it. Burnley’s independent leader – and former Labour politician – Afraisiab Anwar has since backed the agreement, in spite of not being happy with it, having been persuaded that it is at least “the first step towards further deals in the future”.
As a ‘level 2’ deal, Lancashire’s agreement did not involve the creation of an elected mayor – a recurrent roadblock to devolution in the county for the past eight years, because of a lack of unanimity on the subject – but that also meant its powers and financial support were not as extensive as those on offer for a ‘level 3’ arrangement
The LDRS approached all of Lancashire’s district councils for their leaders’ opinion on the next steps for Lancashire devolution.
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