Regional Mayors

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stone

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I'm wondering about the new plans for empowering Regional Mayors. I think it could be good but the way the boundaries of the regions get drawn seems crucial to me. My worry is that legacy boundaries that aren't fit for purpose might ruin it.

I live in Glossop. My guess is that perhaps 30% of working people who live in Glossop work in Glossop (or elsewhere in HighPeak), 50% work in Greater Manchester, 10% in Sheffield (like me) and 10% elsewhere. My guess is that Nottingham and Derby would make up a very small part of that elsewhere. For shopping or evenings out, Nottingham and Derby would be even less significant. I don't think I have ever been to Derby. Yet we are under the auspices of the Nottingham and Derby metro-Mayor. That seemed ridiculous but didn't bother me too much when the metro-Mayor didn't really have much of a role.

If metro-Mayors start to matter, and Borough Councils get subsumed, it seems crucial that boundaries get drawn up appropriately. High Peak (or at least Glossopdale) needs to be in with Manchester. Our hospital is in Greater Manchester, our train station has a Greater Manchester Transport logo. To travel to Nottingham or Derby from Glossop by public transport takes over two hours and goes via Manchester.

I'm guessing the situation will be similar in other places across the country where county boundaries have determined metro-Mayor regions. Counties need to be forgotten about IMO if this is to work. Instead metro-Mayors should be responsible for the places that are actually in their orbit. Necessarily, that is how it is already done with stuff such as hospitals.

I'm keen to hear though how it is for people living elsewhere etc.
 
Stone, FYI Henri Murison, CEO of the NPP, is pushing for High Peak (or at least parts of it, with Glossop getting a mention in the MEN article) to come under Greater Manchester.
 
I think this is a good point Stone. However, I think High Peak is a particular anomaly (I'm sure there will be plenty of others). I also live in the west side of High Peak and there is an obvious connection to Manchester. I suspect areas such as Hope and Castleton feel more of an affinity with Sheffield. It will be nigh on impossible for metro-Mayor boundaries to be adjusted around every discrepancy. In reality we are already heavily affected in the west side of High Peak by the influence and policies of Andy Burnham.
 
Nails, I think you're probably right that Hope Valley is more linked to Sheffield (still not to Nottingham though). But I'm always struck by how few people actually live in all of Hope Valley. It is just one Borough ward, equivalent to eg just one of the several housing estates in/around Glossop.

More generally though, I was thinking that many cities must have outer suburbs that currently get anomalously lumped in with some far distant other city's Mayoral district due to ancient and now ill suited county boundaries that really ought to be disregarded when drawing up Mayoral districts.

Galapinos, thanks for that! I Googled it https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...news/theyve-been-talking-years-calls-30597260 . It's great to hear our MP is calling for that. Weird that Tory councillors are less keen. I'd have imagined this would be something with cross-party support.
 
Nails, I think you're probably right that Hope Valley is more linked to Sheffield (still not to Nottingham though). But I'm always struck by how few people actually live in all of Hope Valley. It is just one Borough ward, equivalent to eg just one of the several housing estates in/around Glossop.

More generally though, I was thinking that many cities must have outer suburbs that currently get anomalously lumped in with some far distant other city's Mayoral district due to ancient and now ill suited county boundaries that really ought to be disregarded when drawing up Mayoral districts.

Galapinos, thanks for that! I Googled it https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...news/theyve-been-talking-years-calls-30597260 . It's great to hear our MP is calling for that. Weird that Tory councillors are less keen. I'd have imagined this would be something with cross-party support.

Local Tory councilors are unhappy about it because GM is Labour dominated (for good or bad) and they will lose influence. Party politics over what is good for the local area.
 
Local Tory councilors are unhappy about it because GM is Labour dominated (for good or bad) and they will lose influence. Party politics over what is good for the local area.
Nottingham and Derby are similarly Labour dominated though (as are most cities). I can see how that isn't so good for Tory councillors in the shires (or those people in the shires who want them). But that to me is an argument against the whole idea of having regional Mayors rather than argument that Glossop should be part of "Greater Nottingham" rather than Greater Manchester.

I suppose maybe they are dischuffed with the whole shebang and so just want to throw a spanner in the works however they can
 
If we disregard the issue of certain anomalies about boudaries, do we think that Regional Mayors are a good thing. My feeling is that they really are good, particularly in the case of Andy Burnham and Greater Manchester. I get the impression that they are also largely popular elsewhere though my knowledge of the details of these is very limited. I'd be interested in what other people thought about the pros and cons of Regional Mayors.
 

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