‘Big is not best in county shake-up’

York boundaries ‘should stay untouched’

POLITICS: The leader of York’s council has insisted that “bigger isn’t necessarily best” as he set out his opposition to the city authority being merged with its neighbours in North Yorkshire as part of a devolution deal.

District leaders are drawing up a plan that would see two unitary authorities being drawn up in North Yorkshire.

THE LEADER of York’s council has insisted that “bigger isn’t necessarily best” as he set out his opposition to the city authority being merged with its neighbours in North Yorkshire as part of a devolution deal.

District leaders are drawing up a plan that would see two unitary authorities being drawn up in North Yorkshire, with one east of the A1 merging City of York with Selby, Ryedale and Scarborough.

But Keith Aspden, the Liberal Democrat leader of City of York council, believes his boundaries should remain untouched in the local government shake-up the Government is demanding in order for North Yorkshire to get new powers and funding from Westminster.

Some in government are understood to think the 200,000 population served by City of York is too small for it to operate effectively. But Coun Aspden said the population served by his council was bigger than in Calderdale or Kirklees and said it was bigger local authorities like Leeds and Birmingham which were seeing the worst financial troubles.

He said: “So actually, financial viability doesn’t necessarily only relate to size but there’s a whole variety of different things in terms of business rate income and commercial stock income that the council has that needs to be taken into account.

“Kirklees Council is smaller

than us, Calderdale Council is smaller, Hull is about the same size, lots of London boroughs are smaller than York.

“And I just reject this notion that councils need to be so big that they can no longer represent

Financial viability doesn’t necessarily only relate to size.

Keith Aspden, leader of City of York council.

communities, towns and cities and some very famous and significant cities of the North of England.”

Last month Minister Simon Clarke told North Yorkshire leaders that its seven district councils would have to be disbanded and replaced unitary authorities providing all council services if a devolution deal was to be agreed.

Mr Aspden, who took over as leader last year, criticised the decision to impose what he described as a “top-down process” of bringing in mayoral authorities and local government changes when the country is just emerging from a pandemic.

He said he had not seen a convincing reason to change City of York Council’s boundaries and that he welcomed North Yorkshire County Council’s plans to create one unitary authority for the county which left York intact.

North Yorkshire’s district leaders have criticised plans for what they say is a “mega council” and are thought to be discussing plans for two unitary authorities either side of the A1, each representing around 400,000 people.

But Mr Aspden said grouping York with Ryedale and Scarborough would ignore its “economic geography” which looks west towards Leeds and Bradford.

He said his plans submitted to government would make the financial case for York remaining a unitary authority on the same boundaries as before, adding that now was not the time to losing focus on major projects like York Central and Castle Gateway.