Hope for Yorkshire mayor ‘by 2020’
DEVOLUTION: Progress is being made towards securing a deal which would see a Mayor for Yorkshire elected by 2020, council leaders said last night.
Representatives of 17 of the 20 Yorkshire and the Humber authorities said they supported a devolution deal with the Government with the widest possible geography.
PROGRESS IS being made towards securing a deal which would see a Mayor for Yorkshire elected by 2020, the region’s council leaders said last night.
Representatives of 17 of the 20 Yorkshire and the Humber authorities, who met in York yesterday, issued a statement saying they supported a devolution deal with the Government with the widest possible geography.
It is understood that several authorities in North Yorkshire, who were wavering over whether a region-wide devolution deal was possible, have now reaffirmed their commitment to the proposal. And after praising the willingness of the Government to compromise on the issue, they are now hoping to fix a date for a meeting with Communities Secretary Sajid Javid to “agree a way forward”.
The meeting came after the leader of Rotherham council removed a key obstacle to a wider Yorkshire devolution deal by revealing that he was willing to accept an unelected mayor for the Sheffield City Region serving a term of only two years.
Chris Read said in a letter to the Government, posted online, that he would support the proposal by his counterparts in Doncaster and Barnsley made in a bid to break the long-running stalemate.
Barnsley council leader Sir Steve Houghton and Doncaster Mayor Ros Jones have suggested that a mayor for South Yorkshire be appointed, rather than elected at a cost of £2m, and for two years rather than four.
This would mean the two authorities would be free in 2020 to join a wider devolution deal with the rest of Yorkshire and the Humber, assuming other civic leaders in the region have reached an agreement.
This solution would mean the Sheffield City Region covering Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster and Barnsley would get the extra powers and £900m in funding over 30 years promised to them by former Chancellor George Osborne in 2015.
It is a response to a Government proposal that would only allow Doncaster and Barnsley to sign up to a pan-Yorkshire deal in 2022, after an elected mayor has served a four year term. Barnsley and Doncaster signalled last summer that they wanted to be part of a wider devolution deal, meaning the agreement made in 2015 would no longer come into force and a Sheffield City Region mayor would be elected this May without the promised powers and funding.
The intervention by Chris Read leaves just Sheffield council as the only South Yorkshire authority still to agree to the compromise solution.
Coun Read said in his letter that he was “pragmatic about how best to make progress, so long as progress is made”.
Of the 20 Yorkshire and Humber council leaders, only Rotherham, Sheffield and Wakefield were absent from yesterday’s meeting. Those who attended said: “The leaders expressed confidence that progress is being made towards securing a deal which would deliver a directly elected Mayor for Yorkshire by 2020 and thanked all sides taking a constructive and flexible approach.”