Last year, the Government accepted Lancashire’s plans for devolution which will involve creating a Lancashire Combined Authority, comprising (and run jointly by) Lancashire County Council and the two unitary councils of Blackburn and Blackpool.
The 12 district councils within Lancashire (e.g. Lancaster, Wyre, Preston etc) will be allowed representation – but no vote – on the various committees that will take strategic decisions.
The Lancashire Combined Authority does not have a mayor, but government minister Jim McMahon has mentioned in parliament that he expects Lancashire to move towards having a directly elected mayor – i.e. a very powerful decision-maker (this is different to civic/ceremonial type of mayor such as we have in the Lancaster district). The government has renamed this type of non-mayoral combined authority ‘Foundation Strategic Authorities’.
However, it was confirmed in the White Paper published on 16 December 2024, that the Government intends to pursue an even bigger reorganisation of local government. It wants to remove the remaining county councils and district councils, and re-organise them into unitary councils within three years.
These unitary councils are each planned to have around 500,000 residents, which is considerably more than three times the size of the Lancaster district. Districts are expected to agree among themselves the ‘best’ way of carving up the counties. Labour and Conservatives will be thinking about this in political terms (i.e. how can they give themselves the best chance of controlling some of the new unitary councils), and in economic terms (i.e. how to secure the best assets).
The consequences in terms of democratic representation for us as Greens and for residents overall, the future of our public assets, and our civic pride and engagement, are huge.
The government seems utterly determined on the re-organisation. We are not content to accept the situation as it is, so watch out for the next Green View and future e-newsletters for ways to get involved and help to make it clear to government what the consequences of re-organisation will be.
Green Party members are invited to find out more and discuss these issues at a members’ meeting on Wednesday 5 February, 7.30-9.00 pm in the Meeting Room at Lancaster Friends Meeting House, next to the Railway Station.
Meanwhile, we are continuing to work towards winning several more seats at the Lancashire County Council elections on 1 May 2025. The election is still going ahead despite the uncertainty about how the County will be carved up over the next few years. It is more important than ever that we have a group of elected Greens who can try to influence what happens next.