People in South Cheshire could soon be governed by a new devolved Cheshire and Warrington authority as part of the Government’s devolution priority programme.
The region is one of six which has been approved to go forward under the Government’s plans to restructure local governance.
As well as merging councils, the government wants more places in England to have mayors, who would get powers over areas such as housing and transport.
It means the Cheshire region has been given the go ahead to hold mayoral elections in May 2026.
The news has been welcomed by the leaders of the region’s three councils, including Leader and Deputy Leader of Cheshire East Council Cllr Nick Mannion and Cllr Michael Gorman, Cllr Louise Gittins, Leader of Cheshire West & Chester Council and Cllr Hans Mundry, Leader of Warrington Borough Council.
In a joint statement they said: “Today’s announcement is good news for our residents, communities and businesses.
“Cheshire and Warrington being part of the priority programme shows that government is confident in Cheshire and Warrington’s ability to seize the opportunities that a devolution agreement could bring.
“It puts us at the front of the queue for significant power and funding and we want to seize this opportunity.
“Devolution would allow us to make more decisions here in Cheshire and Warrington, rather than decisions about our region and its almost one million residents being made in London.”
Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, told Parliament today: “I can confirm to members across the House that the places on the devolution priority programme are Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington, Greater Essex, Hampshire and Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton.
“These places will get a fast-track ticket to drive real change in their area.
“While devolution can sound techie, the outcome is simple – it’s a plan for putting more money in people’s pockets, it’s a plan for quicker, better, cheaper transport designed with local people in mind, a plan for putting politics back in the service.”
She added that Lancashire was “already deciding its mayoral devolution options” and the government would “look at their proposals in the autumn, in parallel with the priority programme”.
So Hazel Blears and Angela Rayner are definitely not singing from the same hymn sheet
Although it’s easy to preface this by saying it can’t be worse than Cheshire East, the new authority is going to be saddled with the enormous inefficiencies, lack of process and truly terrible staff that are all pervaisve through the current council.
Yes, some people are battling through and trying to deliver a basic level of service but so many aren’t. They blame lack of resource but it’s just burdened with legacy systems, terribly management and “job for life” staff who aren’t getting fired if they do a bad job (I am not alone in having direct experience after formally complaining).
The new unitary authority needs a complete rethink of the way it works, where it spend money and who it has working for it. I suspect none of those things will happen.
So we will be paying for a Mayor upon devolution. The only people who will get more money in their pockets will be councillors and Mayor, plus expenses.