 David Miliband: Regional governance ... discuss |
In 2004 the campaign for a Regional Assembly in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire was halted. Where does that leave governance in the region?
"It is creeping regionalisation", says Mike Gardner.
With an air of exasperation the leader of Harrogate District Council appears on the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire edition of the Politics Show brandishing a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister's office.
It is an invitation to him and other council leaders in the region to attend a meeting to discuss "best governance" with the minister for Communities and Local Government David Miliband.
"Words escape me", says Mike Gardner.
 Mike Gardner: Exasperated by Government policy |
"The Government tried to bring in elected regional assemblies and the public reaction was to reject them out of hand.
"Now the message seems to be we will have them any way."
The minister himself says no decisions have been made and he is simply consulting "stakeholders" in a series of meetings around the country.
However Harrogate is a small authority in a two-tier system with North Yorkshire County Council above it taking responsibility for "wider" services such as highways and education.
It leaves Harrogate and the other district council to run more "local services" like dustbin collection and leisure centres.
The Government makes no secret of its preference for bigger "unitary" authorities which run all the services for a minimum population of around 350,000 people.
It points out that some of the country's "shire counties" like North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire with two levels of local councils can have more than five times as many elected councillors as a neighbouring "unitary" authority despite having similar sized populations.
It is not just the two tier system which could be in line for major reform.
Thirty years of piecemeal changes to local councils by successive governments have also left some very small unitary authorities.
The neighbouring councils of North Lincolnshire, headquartered in Scunthorpe, and Grimsby-based North East Lincolnshire were created when the Thatcher Government abolished the Metropolitan County of Humberside.
Not far away Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster became "unitary" authorities when the old South Yorkshire county was dismantled.
All of these are well below the size thought be favoured as the most efficient model by the government.
Town halls up around the region are expecting to see merger proposals being put forward at some stage in the government's consultation process.
For the government, worried by a lack of interest in local councils at the ballot box in recent years, any reform is not going to be easy.
If there is anything guaranteed to get people fired up about events at their local town hall, it's a proposal to shut it down.
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