Cambridge Independent, 30th December 2024
Local Government Reorganisation – a Word of Warning to East Cambridgeshire Residents
The Government dropped a bit of a bombshell just before Christmas, with plans for a radical reform of local Government alongside giving new powers to directly elected Mayors.
Local Government reform last happened locally in 1974 when Ely Urban District Council, which had existed since 1895, was abolished and East Cambridgeshire District Council was formed in its place, with different geography and different powers.
I agree that local Government in Cambridgeshire is a mess and needs an overhaul – local people are understandably baffled by the confusion of the County Council, the District Councils, the Parish Councils, the Combined Authority and the Greater Cambridge Partnership. There has been more than one occasion in the recent past when even the authorities themselves had to take advice about which authority had the power to do something!
However, I fundamentally disagree with the Government’s pre-loaded conditions in the White Paper, which are to form new Unitary Councils that serve population sizes of at least 500,000. In rapidly growing Cambridgeshire and Peterborough with a current total population of 908,000 this is likely to mean two Unitary Councils covering our area and the retention of the Combined Authority and the post of directly elected Mayor.
Under the proposals Mayors are set to get new powers including strategic planning, meaning they will oversee the planning of new housing, jobs and infrastructure rather than the District Councils. Mayors are also set to Chair or Co-Chair the NHS Integrated Care Partnerships which oversee the planning and delivery of health services, as well as taking oversight of Police and Fire services. This puts a lot of power and responsibility into one person’s hands.
It is definitely more coherent, from the point of view of residents, to have one Council that does everything in the local area (although under the proposals the Parish Councils will remain in place), but I have a heartfelt belief that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people that are affected by them and for me, population sizes of 500,000 or more are just too remote, too unaccountable. I also believe that the smaller District Councils have proven to be a vastly more efficient, more nimble and more responsive arm of local Government than their County Council partners.
My preferred solution here in Cambridgeshire would be to do away with the County Council and the Greater Cambridge Partnership, pushing some services such as adult social care, children’s services, education and public health up to the Combined Authority and other services, such as Highways maintenance down to the (retained) District Councils.
A word of warning to East Cambridgeshire residents in particular! In Cambridgeshire we have the added complication of the Government having formed a new entity called the “Cambridge Growth Company Limited” which is headed up by Peter Freeman, formerly of Homes England.
This new organisation will take over the role of strategic planning in Greater Cambridge which is currently made up of Cambridge City and South Cambs. My prediction is that East Cambridgeshire will, via the back door of local Government reorganisation, be absorbed into the remit of this new organisation and that Angela Rayner will then hold the power to decide where in East Cambs she wants to put some of her 150,000 new homes, her solar farms and her wind farms. This is a very real possibility and residents should take it seriously.
The Government says it believes in giving back power to local people through devolution – I fear these proposals are the exact opposite, and in fact, are far more about Government being able
to exert far greater control over what happens in the cities, towns and villages of England from Whitehall.
Anna Bailey
East Cambs District Council, Member for the Downham Ward
Leader of the Council
Deputy Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough
Chairman of East Cambs Community Land Trust
Deputy Chair Political of Ely & East Cambridgeshire Conservative Association
