North Yorkshire leaders must 'grow up and make a decision' or risk missing out on devolution

Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen met with Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC), yesterday at the bridge in Croft-on-Tees, which marks the border between the two areas, to back plans for the county to gain a directly-elected mayor as part of a devolution deal from government.

But he warned that if fighting between NYCC and district council leaders continued, the prospect of devolution may not come to pass.

“Given the timescale, North Yorkshire is at a real risk of missing out on devolution,” he said. “And it requires those leaders to come up with options - and whether that’s one option or more it should not matter, the leaders look at the bigger picture.”

Mr Houchen said in Tees Valley wins such as keeping and expanding the Teesside Internationl Airport, or saving the Redcar steelworks, would not have been possible without a directly elected mayor and it would be “absolutely tragic” if North Yorkshire missed out due to infighting.

“If there’s one option or two options, even if you can’t bridge the gap between the two, let government decide. At some point they have to grow up and make a decision and the window is closing,” he said.

“They are all elected leaders and they have the responsibility.”

He said: “Look at over the bridge in Teesside at how well we are doing, and look at what devolution in North Yorkshire would do.”

But he added that “to get devolution people are going to have to compromise”.

Mr Houchen declined to back any particular proposal for reorganising local government in North Yorkshire, but said the ultimate prize must be securing the new funds and powers promised in any future devolution deal.

It comes as North Yorkshire’s seven district council leaders announced their proposal to split the county in two - along east/west lines - to form two unitary authorities, the first encompassing Ryedale, Scarborough, Selby, and York to cover a population of 465,375, and then Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, and Richmondshire would join and cover 363,297 people.

Councillor Keane Duncan, leader of Ryedale District Council, said: “While not every leader supports change at this chaotic time, the Government wants change and the county council has confirmed it will push ahead with its unpopular ‘mega council’ proposal.

“Therefore, if change is coming, all seven of us - Conservative, Labour and Independent - stand united and determined to work together to get this change right.”

But NYCC leader Mr Les said creating two authorities would cause services to split and would be expensive.

“I don’t like the idea of splitting up the identity of the country, but they will have to split up the services and you get disruption and increased costs and poorer services for a while,” he said.

While Mr Les admitted service quality would recover he said: “You will never lose the increased costs, and our proposal is saying there will be one of everything.”

He said he was also against the idea of “annexing” York by forcing the city into one of the authorities. Under NYCC’s plans, City of York Council would remain as a unitary authority as it is currently run.

“I’ve been saying for the last five years that we’re falling behind, I’ve been looking at Birmingham and Manchester, but I’ve come to realise the much more relevant example to us is Tees Valley,” he said.

Proposals have to be handed to the government by the end of September, with ministers then choosing how to proceed and a public consultation launched in the future.

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James Mitchinson