The new government’s move to give regions more devolved powers has been welcomed by the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council.
Councillor Bella Sankey said that she was surprised at the speed of the new government’s work after receiving a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister.
The letter, from Angela Rayner, who is also the Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary, referred to the English Devolution Bill which was announced in the King’s speech today (Wednesday 17 July).
The bill is intended to give new powers to metropolitan mayors and combined authorities.
Councillor Sankey spoke about the letter after she was elected chair of the Greater Brighton Economic Board yesterday.
Ms Rayner wrote: “We continue to believe that new devolution settlements should be tailored to sensible economic geographies so that local leaders can act at the scale needed to effectively deploy their powers.
“In the majority of cases that will require local authorities to come together in new combined or combined county authorities. I encourage you to begin discussions with your neighbouring authorities on this basis.”
In April, Councillor Sankey criticised the former Conservative government for telling Brighton and Hove City Council to form a “local growth hub” with neighbouring West Sussex County Council.
She said that the instruction from the Tories was “illogical” because Brighton and Hove’s economy was “clearly distinct” from that of West Sussex.
Councillor Sankey said yesterday: “Because we are a coalition of the willing, with extensive economic and business experience across local authority boundaries, we are well placed to be involved in discussions about opportunities for deeper collaboration.
“We can bring relevant people together and highlight insights about how the strengths and achievements of the different councils can complement one another to make the strongest possible case for investment in the region.
“We want to be part of this conversation and capitalise on the region’s potential.”
The Greater Brighton Economic Board brings together seven councils as well as business leaders, universities and colleges – from Bognor to Seaford and from the coast to Crawley.
Councillor Sankey took over as chair from the former leader of Worthing Borough Council. Beccy Cooper, who was elected as the Labour MP for Worthing West at the general election on Thursday 4 July.
Standard tribal nonsense from Sankey as usual then. When it’s a Tory government it’s terrible but under a Labour government she’s happy for us to be subsumed into a wider Sussex area where our voices will be largely lost.
How many cllrs have the ability or motivation to get stuck into ‘devolved powers’? Few cllrs do more than prop up chairs in mtgs, having only given glaze-eyed attention to agendas in any detail.
Most have day jobs. Being a cllr is not a job; and the stipend is not a salary. Cllrs typically declare max 20 hours of council work a week.
Devolving powers wd need to change that drastically! To be effective. And not just added to ‘delegated powers’ officer workloads!
I believe there is a quite a variation on the number of hours worked with councillors. Some of this is self motivation, passion for the job, and balancing with other commitments. Either mindset is correct, we have a variety of councillors from different backgrounds, and that should be reflected in the amount of time they may be able to commit.
Brighton and Hove is very different to other parts of Sussex. Feels like the main reason Bella is pushing “devolution” is because she has her eye on the role of mayor, her comments now completely contradict what she said previously.
The unique make up of Brighton means there’s a huge risk regional devolution would have the effect Bella Sankee spoke about before, rather than what she’s spouting now (presumably because she’s repeating what she’s been told by Labour bosses to say, and she has her eye on the prize of mayor). Otherwise why the turnaround in her position in just a few months…
In fairness, that ‘different makeup’ is because Brighton is THE city of Sussex (both West and East) — it should be providing a metropolitan lifestyle (and all of the opportunities/infrastructure that come with it) for the people of the region who want more than what their hometown can offer. London alone cannot accommodate everybody and their ambitions.
Brighton has repeatedly failed to do that (objected to it in fact) and so it makes sense that now pressure has to be applied by the region as a whole. We’re not going to turn a random Sussex town into a city just because Brighton hates developlent. The NIMBY’s of Brighton need to get over themselves and move to Bognor Regis if they want a quiet life with no new buildings or apartments.
Brighton has the potential to be a truly incredible city for future generations, as it was always intended to be — it’s just this one (older) generation who have decided that they want to comandeer the city for themselves (detesting the fact that it even IS a city in the first place; as it was always intended to be).
Labour have already destroyed Brighton. It’s a drug infested dirty s hole. This won’t make any difference.
‘Commandeer’ is an interesting word to use in respect of people who are likely indigenous to the city, as opposed to a group of Johnny come lately types from a somewhat scruffy borough in London. Brighton has too much innate substance to be reduced to a form of social engineering experiment conducted by activists and fanatics who cannot achieve their ‘ambitions’ in their places of origin.
Not only interesting, but also correct.
And you have it completely backward – the people living in central Brighton / Hove homes are more than likely (I’ll hazard a guess at 7/10) people who have had careers in London or elsewhere (allowing them to afford such homes). They live in ‘somewhat scruffy London boroughs’ and then move to Brighton for a ‘quiet’ retirement (in a city, rather ridiculously) – where they then protest and try to block any new development for the ‘Johnny come lately’ youth of Sussex (people FROM the surrounding area – looking for the lifestyle and opportunities that THEIR regional city should be accommodating).
‘Comandeering’ would still even apply to the indigenous Brightonians you speak of (if they are the type to oppose development) — the city is not ‘theirs’ – it’s a city – it serves (or is supposed to serve) the region, and grow and develop to accommodate metropolitan life.
Their family would have moved to Brighton for the same reason – and we would not have the Pavilion, those large estates, half of the houses, or the Pier if those people had taken the same attitude to gatekeeping the area for themselves and their personal tastes for the quaint life. If they wanted that – they should have chose Bognor.
So yes it is still in fact comandeering, because Brighton has always been on the path of large-scale developments, tourist attractions, and population growth. It’s moniker was literally ‘London by Sea’. Again, move to Bognor if you want to be tribalistic and possessive over the area you live, not a city.
No thanks Labour have turned Brighton into a dirty, drug addict infested dump. They have been responsible for the demise of the city and we need less powers given to this useless council and not more.
Known political biases aside, drug dealers create issues with drug addiction. You know this, I think.