EXCLUSIVE
The hoo-hah
over whether Boston and East Lindsey councils should join forces may well turn
out to be academic
***
Boston
Eye has seen a
copy of a document purporting to be from Lincolnshire County Council leader Martin
Hill to Robert Jenrick – Secretary of State for Housing, Communities
and Local Government. and Conservative MP for not-so-far-from-Lincolnshire, Newark.
***
The letter
talks of discussions on “collective ambitions” for Lincolnshire to become a super
authority – an idea first mooted in September 2016 but which fell by
the wayside because of government insistence at the time that a devolved county
should be run by an elected mayor.
***
The
following month councillors voted against plans for a mayoral combined
Authority by 43 to 17 against, with five abstentions, even though it was said
that the plan would save about £15m a year.
Supporters
of the deal said the no vote had "killed off the devolution bid".
***
However,
in May 2018, Councillor Hill was quoted as saying that informal discussions had
taken place between the leaders of the 10 councils in Greater Lincolnshire and
the government over plans to revisit the devolution deal.
He was
reported as saying that a new framework could be put in place by the government
to allow for a devolved region without an elected mayor.
“The
government has indicated that it is now ready to think about offering
devolution to areas that currently haven’t got it,” he said.
And last September,
a former leader of South Kesteven District Council said that Lincolnshire
County Council was to again debate creating a “single unitary authority”.
***
So what’s
happening now?
It appears
that the letter to the Communities’ Secretary was dated the day after
the two councils discussed the proposed merger between Boston and East Lindsey –
and months after the discussion leading up those meeting took place.
***
The letter
we have seen says:
“A
few weeks have passed since we met with you to discuss our collective ambitions
for devolution to Greater Lincolnshire with options for local government
re-organisation,
“Since
then the unprecedented challenges of Covid-19 have affected us all.
“As
we progress through to the recovery phase of this crisis there is going to be a
need to grow the economy at a faster pace and to higher levels than before. We
recognise that to accomplish this we must be ready with plans to take advantage
of opportunities for growth and transformation.
“As
we mentioned when we met, we are a recognised economic area with well-
established UK Centres and the potential for rapid economic growth building on
our successes to date and shared agenda for growth.
“As
an economic powerhouse, unlocking routes to new markets, we are keen to play an
active role supporting the Government's key agendas.
“We
would welcome the opportunity to submit our bid for a devolution deal to deliver
our and Governments [sic] ambitions”.
***
So, it
appears that all the time the local Boston/Manby talks have been going on, in the
background plans to form a unitary authority that would see districts vanish
entirely and render the local plans pointless have been going on.
***
Quite
where this leaves Boston’s future is anyone’s guess.
***
Watch this
space as they say.
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Any arrangement that precludes the incumbent inept inmates from overseeing the Boston asylum just has to be a step forward in my book. For too long have we endured the rank incompetence, the endless infighting and the dithering, clueless approach to local governance.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the outcome, it could only ever be an improvement on the status quo. Time to address the Worst Street 'Dunning-Kruger'* syndrome, once and for all.
*The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability.
Whilst I am prepared to accept the reality of the Dunning-Kruger effect I can't accept that withdrawing democratic accountability from local communities is a good thing. We need to improve the quality of councillors but not at the expense of hundreds of years of neighbourhood accountability to local communities. Local accountability has allowed local people to vent frustration and feel a local representative is on their side. The way of tyranny awaits those who throw away democracy.
ReplyDelete