How is a new directly elected mayor for North Yorkshire going to help Whitby? - Yorkshire Post Letters

The first of August – Yorkshire Day and the political silly season writ large. A minister who previously vanished without trace has re-emerged and has donned his flat cap and polished up his rendition of ‘On Ilkla Moor Baht’at’ to gift us a directly elected mayor for North Yorkshire and York.

Disappointingly, the leaders of York and North Yorkshire have duly doffed their own caps in similar fashion.

It’s a non-policy announcement suitable for a caretaker government which, we are told, cannot make new policy announcements. Here we are again: levelling up, devolution, localism –

Within months of its creation, North Yorkshire Council will be in thrall to a new directly elected mayor for the North Riding – as the government would have it. That was a weak hook from which to hang the announcement on Yorkshire Day. The forty-eighth Yorkshire Day reflects the Ridings Association’s frustration at the impact of the 1972 Local Government Act on our county’s history. Successive administrations have done nothing to remedy that. Briefly, Eric Pickles championed the pre-1974 boundaries. Try telling that to the post office. Try telling Facebook – which uniquely believes that Whitby is part of Redcar & Cleveland.

We will have the reintroduction of two-tier local government above the ‘local leaders who know best’ – or more to the point local people who want a say in how their lives are lived. All this within twelve months of the faffing approach to double devolution we are being subjected to right now, which we can clearly see dwindling as the attention of the leaders of North Yorkshire and York councils are focused on their Elected Mayor who will uniquely speak for the ‘North Riding, York and Ainsty’ and have the ear of government – if the rosette matches. This kind of politics by numbers does not serve local communities. It does not reflect what we need. It does not deliver what we want.

Whitby enjoyed a moment in the headlines in June and delivered an unequivocal message about how local people want to be governed – which is locally - and what they want done about being squeezed out of affordable housing by second home owners and the proliferation of holiday lets.

We are waiting for evidence of anybody listening or taking steps to address these concerns. Our current tiers of government blame one another for this impasse. Shall we wait for our directly elected mayor to solve this? We shouldn’t hold our breath.