Councils have pushed forward a move to transfer some central government powers to York and North Yorkshire, despite cross-party concerns York’s residents will gain more than the county’s.

Less than 24 hours after City of York Council gave its seal of approval to sending the results of a public consultation over a proposed devolution deal for the city and North Yorkshire, the majority of councillors on its Northallerton-based counterpart followed suit.

While the deal seeks to fuse the futures of the two councils, numerous North Yorkshire councillors underlined their view that York’s 200,000 residents would be the winners in a mayoral combined authority with just two councillors from each authority.

During a lengthy debate on the devolution deal during a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council, numerous councillors attacked proposals to hand a disproportionate amount of power to York.

Many councillors agreed that the deal was far from perfect, but there was little option than to agree to it if the area wanted extra money from the government.

The authority’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, said the deal on the table was “just the start” of negotiations with the government to hand more decision-making powers and funds directly to the area.

He said: 

“We have got to move on. The past is the past, this is the future. This is how government prefers to work. And if we negate that we are going to lose out yet again.”

Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council.

Cllr Les said the deal would help avoid bidding wars, by moving decision-making out of Whitehall to York and Northallerton, there would also be safeguards in place on the mayoral combined authority to protect the interests of both councils’ populations.

However, opposition councillors said the deal would lead to decision-making becoming more concentrated in a small group of unelected people on the combined authority.

Green group leader Cllr Andy Brown said the authority was being offered “crumbs not substance” following decades of the government stripping back funding for County Hall, so the deal was “more propaganda than reality”.

Cllr Stuart Parsons, Independents group leader, said of the £18m extra annual government funding the deal would bring, up to £4m would be spent on staffing the mayor’s office.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Bryn Griffiths said the mayor’s office would be “yet another layer of bureaucracy to be funded by the poor taxpayers”.

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Labour group leader Cllr Steve Shaw Wright said devolution would happen whether people in North Yorkshire wanted it or not, while Craven District Council leader Richard Foster said branded the deal was “York-centric”.

Ripon Cllr Andrew Williams said York was a “basket case of a council that the poor residents in York have to suffer” and that many people in York would like to see it abolished and being a part of a wider North Yorkshire.

He told the meeting: 

“It is a local authority, quite frankly, which fails the people of York every day it opens its doors for business.”

Seamer division member Cllr Heather Phillips was among few councillors who expressed any solidarity with York.

She said: 

“York, we welcome you. We want to work with you and we’ll be a better North Yorkshire when we do that.”

A former local government ombudsman has launched a withering attack on two councils’ consultation over a North Yorkshire devolution deal.

Local government expert Anne Seex raised a litany of questions over the quality and results of the eight-week exercise to assess public support for a mayoral combined authority and government funding deal negotiated by City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council.

However, a meeting of the county council’s executive heard just a single concern raised about the consultation’s mixed findings – that the deal could lead to an increase in bureaucracy – with numerous members instead expressing their excitement about the potential benefits of devolution.

Ex-ombudsman Mrs Seex told the meeting it was clear that those who took part in the consultation exercise in North Yorkshire had seen “more disadvantages than advantages” to the deal.

While the council has claimed “widespread support” for the devolution deal, Mrs Seex said online responses to the consultation amounted to just 0.3% of the electorate, which she described as a “pitifully small” sample.

She said advice from the Consultation Institute it had employed to help run the consultation that the consultation had been good was “a case of a private company marking its own homework”.

Mrs Seex told the meeting: 

“The exercise that you have undertaken is better described as marketing.

“The information to the public was purely promotional and omitted important contextual information about the scheme, such as the only directly elected position would be the mayor, that York city would have three times the representation of North Yorkshire with two members for 200,000-plus people and North Yorkshire having two members for 600,000-plus people.”

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She said the powers of elected councillors on the York and North York authorities would be “sucked up” by the mayoral combined authority, rather than being devolved down.

Mrs Seex said the combined authority was set to be allowed to call in planning applications and make decisions against local views, while the funding attached to the deal was £200 million less than the two councils had asked for, and that government funding could not be relied on and could be subject to reviews.

She said: 

“The funding amounts to £222 per person per year while council spending across the North has been reduced by £431 per person per year.”

She added most of the powers being trumpeted as being given to the combined authority were already in the hands of the councils.

Mrs Seex said the consultation results provided no breakdown of how York and North Yorkshire residents had responded and that it was crucial that elected community representatives across the county were aware of how their residents had responded to the exercise.

James Farrar, of the York and North Yorkshire LEP.

James Farrar, chief officer of North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership, which helped run the consultation, said the structure and content of the consultation had been shared with government officials before being launched and that details of the full devolution deal had been shared with the public.

He said: 

“This was not a consultation on the relative merits of devolution. We were consulting on the scheme. 

“The scheme sets out how the devolution deal will be implemented, it was therefore important we focus on the key elements in the scheme.”

Mr Farrar added the Consultation Institute had been employed due its experience in helping authorities examine support for devolution deals.

He said the ultimate decision over whether the authorities had met legal requirements lay with the councils and it would be for the government to assess the suitability of the consultation.

Cllr Carl Les, leader of the council, said the executive would forego its power to send the results of the consultation to the government for consideration, and instead invite all the authority’s elected members to voice their views at a meeting later this month.

He said he was delighted the authority had reached a position where it could progress towards achieving beneficial devolution deals, such as the one in neighbouring Teesside, and a point where North Yorkshire and York would have a more powerful voice.

An ambition to create a devolved mayoral combined authority for North Yorkshire and York has reached a milestone as the local authorities pursuing it launched their first joint decision-making body.

In a turn of events that highlighted geographic and transport issues a combined authority for the vast area will face, the inaugural meeting of North Yorkshire and City of York Council’s joint devolution committee started more than half an hour late due to committee members travelling to central York being delayed on public transport.

With two of the leading executive members from each councils and being co-chaired by the councils’ leaders, the committee bears a close resemblance to the proposed mayoral combined authority executive.

However, it also includes non-voting members, such as the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner and the chair of the local enterprise partnership.

The meeting heard the committee was being launched despite the public having yet to decide having a mayoral combined authority as part of the proposed devolution deal is acceptable, with a consultation under way.

North Yorkshire’s monitoring officer Barry Khan told members: 

“This is in no way trying to pre-determine or pre-judge that process.

“If the councils agree to submit a proposal for a mayoral combined authority then this committee can transform into a shadow combined authority to set up that arrangement.”

Nevertheless, James Farrar, the enterprise partnership’s chief officer, told he meeting the councils needed to start taking joint decisions or face losing nearly £20 million of funding the government had agreed to give under the proposed devolution deal.

Mr Farrar said: 

“The rules are very stringent and inflexible.”

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He said the government had set a deadline of March 2025 to complete two major projects it was funding.

The schemes include £7 million to enable the area to drive green economic growth, creating the country’s first carbon negative region, and £12.7 million to support the building of new homes on brownfield land.

He said with a potential date of creating the combined authority in December next year it left a very tight timescale to complete the projects, leading councillors to approve a move to invite firms to submit interest in potential schemes this month.

Mr Farrar said even if devolution was not progressed the authorities would have created a pipeline to challenge for “increasingly competitive” funding from government.

City of York Council leader Cllr Keith Aspden issued an appeal for as many residents and businesses as possible to respond to the consultation ahead of its December 16 deadline.

The meeting was told the committee would “exercise executive functions”, but its remit could be widened to “a joint committee that exercises both council and executive functions”.

The county council’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, said he was hopeful the consultation would come back in favour of creating a mayoral combined authority.

He added: 

“It’s a first step and of course we have been very keen to say to people that devolution is an iterative process.

“I really welcome the fact that the brownfield fund also covers the rural areas, not just urban areas, and also that we are getting some help with net zero activities because that is highly topical at the moment.”

Harrogate district councillors are supporting the campaign to make York the home of Britain’s railways.

York is among six short-listed locations chosen by the government as potential locations to be the headquarters of Great British Railways.

The other shortlisted locations include Birmingham, Crewe, Derby, Doncaster and Newcastle.

Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green party councillors from across the Harrogate district joined other North Yorkshire County Councillors in a cross-party show of support at County Hall in Northallerton for York’s bid.

Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council, said York’s selection would “be of huge benefit not just for York, but for the whole of the region as well”. He added:

“The bid by York is ambitious and shows the intent in both the city and across North Yorkshire to bring real economic benefits and the prospect of hundreds of new jobs, and could prove to be a defining moment for the region.

“York has a long and proud heritage connected to the railways dating back to the Victorian era, and it would be fitting for the city to be at the forefront of attempts to reform the nation’s rail network in the 21^st century.

1,600 jobs created

Great British Railways will be a state-owned public body that oversees rail transport from next year.

Analysis has shown that the new headquarters would add an estimated £110 million to York’s economy, creating 1,600 new jobs with 320 of those roles in the 700 most deprived communities within an hour’s train journey of the city.

York is already one of the biggest rail centres in the country, with 5,000 employees linked to the industry and major train operators based in the city.

The city is also home to the National Railway Museum, and the York Central project, which is one of the largest brownfield sites in the country, is centred around the city’s railway station.

An artist’s impression of the proposed York Central development.

City of York Council leader Cllr Keith Aspden, said having Great British Railways’ headquarters in the city would open up opportunities across the whole of the region. He said:

“With 700 of the most deprived communities in the UK within an hour of York, the jobs created by locating Great British Railways in York could have a hugely positive impact on the levelling up agenda.

“Our rail heritage, expertise and skills from across the region and strength in innovation makes York the obvious home of rail.

People can vote to choose the town or city they would like to see host the new organisation but the final decision will be made by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps later this year.

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Harrogate district residents are being urged to donate toys and games at household waste recycling centres in the run up to Christmas.

The aim is to collect 10 tonnes of items, which will be passed on to young people, aged up to 16, who are experiencing hardship this Christmas.

The Re-use Santa Appeal is working with No Wrong Door, which supports young people in or on the edge of the care system at centres in Harrogate and Scarborough, on the initiative.

No Wrong Door replaces traditional council-run young people’s homes with hubs that combine residential care with fostering.

Staff at the county’s recycling centres, which are operated by Yorwaste on behalf of North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council, will ensure donations are in good working condition before they are delivered to children.

The gifts will be given as part of a Christmas family bag to families in North Yorkshire and York. Surplus items will be distributed to other charities.

There are three recycling centres in the Harrogate district: on Wetherby Road and Penny Pot Lane in Harrogate and on Dallamires Crescent in Ripon. Drop-off points are located by the containers for household reusable items. Donations will be accepted until December 15.

The sites are also taking donations of new or part-used Christmas wrapping paper and tape as part of the appeal.

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County Councillor Derek Bastiman, executive member for waste management at North Yorkshire County Council, said:

“Christmas is a time of good will. So we’re asking families who can to add a little light to the festive season this year for many children who are less fortunate.

“I encourage people to check their cupboards for any unwanted toys and games and to donate them in the confidence that their items will go to a good home.”

Last Christmas, people donated more than 2,000 games, toys, puzzles and books, including air hockey tables, dolls’ houses, Nerf guns, bicycles and giant teddy bears.

Cllr Paula Widdowson, executive member for environment and climate change at City of York Council, added:

“It’s critical the donations are clean, well-cared for and in full working order. Thank you once again to everyone who supports this appeal.”

City of York Council is set to support North Yorkshire County Council’s plan for a single council in the county ahead of a devolution bid.

Authority leaders in York said there is “no logical reason” for it to merge into a western council, as outlined in district leaders’ plan for two councils in the east and west of North Yorkshire.

At a press briefing, Cllr Keith Aspden, Liberal Democrat leader of City of York Council, said the authority will submit proposals to government to remain as a unitary authority and effectively support the county council’s model.

That would see a single authority created for North Yorkshire, alongside the City of York Council, and the seven district councils scrapped – including Harrogate Borough.

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Senior councillors at City of York Council are expected to back the proposal at an executive meeting on October 22, before the proposal goes to full council later this month.

Cllr Aspden said:

“Following consultation, we believe proposals that cause as little disruption as possible to allow City of York Council to concentrate on recovery at this critical time is the right way forward. 

“For this reason, the best way to support strong recovery, secure devolution quickly, and support the Levelling-Up agenda in York and North Yorkshire, is with City of York continuing as a unitary authority.  Any other model of local government would fail to effectively represent York’s history, communities and the unique characteristics of the city.

“York’s unique character, beautiful heritage and strong history is recognised across the world. Protecting our identity, whilst keeping costs low and minimising service disruption for our residents, is of paramount importance for our future long term prosperity.  

“Ultimately, any decision that affects York’s residents, businesses and communities, should be made in York.”

Cllr Carl Les, leader of the county council, said:

“We have been very clear from the beginning that we believe a new single council, bringing together the best of the county and seven district councils, presents the best possible opportunity for everyone in North Yorkshire. 

“In preparing our proposal for government, we have and continue, to listen very carefully to a broad range of partners, groups, organisations, individuals and businesses over many weeks.

“We believe it is crucial to retain the identity of North Yorkshire and to offer every single person here the best possible chances in life and the same high quality services and support, regardless of where they live in the county.

“Our proposal also protects the unique identity of the City of York, which is already served by an established unitary council.”

It comes as Robert Jenrick, secretary of state for local government, invited councils across North Yorkshire to submit plans for reorganisation.

Councils have until December 9 to submit final proposals for the new-look local government structure.

The government said it would aim for any unitary council plan to be implemented by April 2023.