The Times reports that “Theresa May is to ditch George Osborne’s policy of directly elected mayors for city regions, partly to avoid Labour using them as a platform for a revival in its heartlands, The Times has learnt.
"The prime minister does not share the former chancellor’s enthusiasm for the plan to elect one individual for every city to be in charge of extra powers and cash devolved from Whitehall. She is also said to be nervous that the policy would give a platform to Labour moderates such as Andy Burnham, the former shadow home secretary.”
Councillors Lewis Herbert and Kevin Price said: "We want to be pioneers in genuine devolution from Whitehall to local Councils in Cambridgeshire and there’s plenty that Cambridge and wider residents can benefit from in the Government’s plans, including removing unnecessary controls by Government officials over local decisions.
"Homeless and overcrowded families in Cambridge also badly need the promised £70 million extra investment in new Cambridge council rental housing, that we negotiated so hard for and which Government to their credit agreed.
"But devolution would work even better without the requirement of an extra Mayor, so we hope that the Government will reconsider this and postpone their proposed 2017 Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mayoral elections. We ask Theresa May to let councils make the decisions through the planned Combined Authority and let us demonstrate that we can deliver successful devolution without an extra tier of local government.
"We know that colleagues in other councils, including in the parallel devolution to neighbouring Norfolk, have similar views and this change would remove a big barrier many people have with the original devolution proposals, including many who would then become strong devolution supporters."
The consultation on the Devolution proposals for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ends tomorrow, Tuesday 23 August. More consultation Information can be found at http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/devolution and response survey at https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/devosurvey
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