Lancashire could be on path for elected mayor
Lancashire could get an elected mayor, but local leaders are demanding to know what extra powers and funding it would bring.
Lancashire could finally be on the path to getting an elected mayor – if the government can persuade the county’s leaders that the role would bring with it “clear and substantial benefits“.
The Lancashire Combined County Authority (LCCA) – the body established earlier this year to oversee the area’s first devolution deal – has written to ministers to clarify exactly what extra funding and powers would be on offer if a mayor-led organisation replaced it.
One of the signatories of the letter, Lancashire County Council’s Reform UK leader Stephen Atkinson – who has historically been opposed to a mayor – said it was important to be certain of the situation, rather than just “assume”.
However, a powerful business group has warned that Lancashire is already “losing companies” to places like Greater Manchester, because of the ongoing absence of an Andy Burnham-style figurehead for the county.
The LCCA request for a breakdown of mayoral benefits came in response to the conclusion of a government-ordered review designed to enhance Lancashire’s embryonic devolution agreement, which was formally implemented only in February.
That locally undertaken assessment found that moving to a mayoral model would give the county “a range of legal powers and funding commitments” that would enable the LCCA “to deliver more for Lancashire” than the current deal allows.
The outcome could hardly have come as a surprise to anybody with a passing interest in the subject, as successive governments have made mayors the gold standard for devolution – offering more significant powers to those areas that choose to have one. The current Labour administration has been particularly strident in its attempts to persuade any places without a directly elected mayor to adopt the arrangement.
However, devolution – the process by which local areas are handed greater freedoms from central government and extra cash to go with them – has been the source of a near decade-long political wrangle in Lancashire, with the claimed pros and cons of a mayor sitting at the heart of what became a perennial stalemate between the leaders of the county’s 15 councils.
That was finally resolved – at least to a degree – when the three so-called ‘top-tier’ authorities of Lancashire County Council, Blackpool Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council got together to strike a devolution deal with the then Conservative government in the autumn of 2023. Crucially, the agreement did not come with a mayor – putting Lancashire within the second of three ‘levels’ of devolution then on offer.
Although the deal was signed in November that year, the legislation bringing it into force was not put before Parliament until before the 2024 general election – meaning that it landed in the new government’s in-tray.
Lancashire’s Labour MPs and the county’s Labour and coalition-led district councils – who were amongst the twelve second-tier authorities that were controversially not part of the deal-making process – subsequently pushed ministers to rip up the arrangement and start from scratch on negotiating what they regarded as a more beneficial, mayoral agreement.
However, at the request of the LCCA, the government ultimately decided to honour the previous deal, but with the key caveat that the organisation should put forward proposals for “deeper” devolution by this autumn – the unspoken suggestion appearing to be that a mayor should be part of any future devolved package for the county.
The conclusion of the LCCA-led review was expected to mark the moment when those proposals would materialise – with Lancashire having to nail its colours to the mast over a mayor once and for all. But the letter asking the government for more detail about what a mayor would mean has seemingly extended the life of the saga before a final decision has to be made.
The answer to the question Lancashire has asked of ministers lies, to a large extent, in the devolution framework published last December, which sets out the specific powers to be afforded to areas depending on whether or not they have mayor.
But the LDRS understands that the purpose of the letter, at least in part, may be to try to flush out exactly how much additional cash would come the county’s way if it finally took the plunge and accepted the mayoral post it has shunned for so long.
Opponents of Lancashire’s current deal noted that while it came with control over the adult education budget and additional transport and regeneration powers, the core
financial element amounted to a one-off £20m pot to help boost “innovation-led growth”.
In contrast, areas with a mayor are promised guaranteed sums in the form of an investment fund, with cash allocations – usually in the tens of millions – made every year over the course of 30 years.
At a recent LCCA meeting, voting members from the trio of top-tier authorities resolved that “if the government confirms clear and substantial benefits for Lancashire” of an elected mayor, the authority will consider setting out its approach to conducting a public consultation on the prospect.
A previous request to the government from County Cllr Atkinson for a legally-binding referendum on the subject was sidestepped rather than explicitly refused – but now seems improbable, because the ministers did refuse permission for such a vote on a forthcoming shake-up of the county’s council system.
Even if agreeing to a mayor once again proves an insurmountable sticking point for Lancashire’s politicians, a little-commented upon part of the devolution legislation currently going through Parliament nevertheless permits the government to impose the role on a combined county authority area after 18 months of that body’s existence.
In Lancashire’s case, that means the decision over a mayor could be taken by ministers – rather than local leaders – from August 2026.
‘We’re missing out without a mayor’
Being without a mayor is damaging the county’s job creating capacity, according to the chair of the Lancashire Business Board.
Mo Isap, who sits as a non-voting associate member of the LCCA, told the meeting at which the latest mayoral machinations were discussed that said that the deepest devolution deals – secured by having a mayor overseeing the arrangements – were about more than the money they brought from Whitehall.
“Mayoral authorities are able to leverage from the private sector – whether that’s foreign direct investment or direct investment from the private sector in the UK. That has a direct implication for job creation.
“A lack of clarity and confidence affects the private sector more than it affects anybody else.
“People who’ve approached me…are making investment decisions outside of our region, because they believe there is more support that’s being leveraged through that devolution situation in other areas.
“We’re already losing companies to Greater Manchester and elsewhere from our towns,” Mr. Isap warned. He called for an analysis of exactly what sort of investment opportunities Lancashire could be missing out on.
With the Cumbria and Cheshire and Warrington regions now also signed up to mayor, Lancashire is on track to become the only area in the North without the all-powerful post.
Rossendale Council leader Alyson Barnes – one of the two representatives of Lancashire’s district councils on the LCCA, neither of whom have a vote on the authority’s business – said there was a “compelling argument why we do need to go down this path”.
The Labour politician noted that mayoral areas also had access to funding pots that places like Lancashire are currently locked out of, telling that meeting that £13bn was recently “divvied up” between mayor-led authorities.
“We weren’t part of that discussion and we certainly didn’t benefit from that funding. And I just don’t see…who is speaking up for Lancashire.
“It just feels to me as though we’re taking an awful long time to make some of these decisions – and I think the benefits are clear if you want to see them,” Cllr Barnes added.
However, County Cllr Atkinson said the fact that the government had made it clear that a mayoral election in Lancashire could not place until May 2027 – not May 2026, as previously suggested by the former deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner – meant that “nothing is being delayed” by asking the government the question posed in Lancashire’s letter.
“There’s plenty of time to have a mayor in 2027 if that’s what people decide to do.
I think it’s important to get clarity on what a mayor brings, not that people assume,” said County Cllr Atkinson.
His Reform UK group took control at County Hall after the previous Conservative administration – which struck the current devolution deal, along with the Labour-led Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen councils – was ousted at the local elections in May.
He is a longstanding opponent of elected mayors, claiming that they centralise power in a single individual rather than devolving it. At an election hustings event in April, County Cllr Atkinson claimed the mayoral model would also “politicise investment”.
“Marginal seats will get investment, because that’s where the votes are for the mayor,” he said.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service after the LCCA meeting, Blackburn with Darwen leader Phil Riley – who has long championed a mayor for Lancashire – said it would be “senseless” for the county to become the only place in the North of England that did not have one.
“Just in practical terms, when every piece of money is doled out, we in Lancashire would have to write in and ask, “Where do we fit in with this?” he warned.
Cllr Riley said that should the government respond to Lancashire’s letter with the list of benefits he expects ministers to set out, “there would be no reason why Lancashire would not then proceed to have a mayoral election”.
Blackpool Council leader Lynn Williams – who has previously spoken about Lancashire being on “the bus” to a deeper devolution destination that the stop it currently sits at – was also approached for comment.
However, at the LCCA meeting itself, the authority’s other district council representative – Wyre Council leader Michael Vincent – said that there is currently a dearth of evidence as to the benefits of the current arrangements, which would enable a meaningful comparison between the mayoral model and the status quo.
“I’m in favour of the existing model. The issue for me is that if it’s going to be justified going forward – when we can see what investment mayors do bring for other areas – what we need to be able to do is make the case for how the non-mayoral LCCA is also securing investment for our area,” Cllr Vincent said.
He also questioned the wisdom of creating a new mayor-led combined authority in 2027, when its component parts – which would be all 15 of Lancashire’s councils, unlike the current top-tier LCCA set-up – are due to be dismantled just 12 months later as part of the separate process of streamlining local government, which has been set in train by ministers.
The introduction of a mayor would, under the present system, have to be ratified by the members of Lancashire County Council, Blackpool Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council.