South Kesteven District Council leader on Lincolnshire’s devolution deal
Last Friday, I attended a Lincolnshire Growth Summit organised by the county council as part of the preparations for so-called ‘devolution’, writes South Kesteven District Council leader Ashley Baxter (Ind).
A plan supported by both the outgoing and incoming Westminster governments will create a new combined county authority for Greater Lincolnshire. We are told that this new tier of government will bring many millions of pounds of new funding to the county. However, there are strings attached including the election of a Mayor for Greater Lincolnshire next May. This individual will exert his or her influence from the Humber down to the Wash, and from Stamford up to Scunthorpe. They will be accountable once every four years to a baffled electorate.
A consultation last year established that most people in Lincolnshire who expressed a view did not want a mayor but one of the quirks of our democracy is that we quite often end up with what the majority don’t want.
You don’t need a politics degree or a crystal ball to work out that once the combined county authority has been established for Lincolnshire, a further reorganisation of local government will follow. This might mean the replacement of existing district and county councils with unitary authorities which are bigger than districts but smaller than the county. How this will work in practice, nobody yet knows.
Perhaps local authorities will be formed which disregard historic county boundaries, or alternatively we might return to the parts and wapentakes of Lincolnshire that existed prior to the Norman invasion? What matters most is that any new arrangement works for the people of Lincolnshire.
Also last Friday, I attended the South Kesteven Community Awards. This was a celebration of the hundreds of volunteers and organisations that make such a difference to our district. Awards were presented to inspirational young people as well as people who have offered a life-time of service to their towns and villages. It was heart-warming to meet the finalists and to hear the wonderful stories of how each had changed their local area by raising money, volunteering or just being ready to help others in need.
