This North Yorkshire devolution stitch-up betrays democracy – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Coun Paul Andrews (Ind), Malton Ward, Ryedale District Council.
North Yorkshire's future governance remains open to debate.North Yorkshire's future governance remains open to debate.
North Yorkshire's future governance remains open to debate.

CONSERVATIVE MP Robert Goodwill (The Yorkshire Post, September 8) endorses Tory-controlled North Yorkshire County Council’s power grab. 
He would do that wouldn’t he?

In the same edition, John Freeman says the county’s education service “ain’t broke: so don’t fix it”.

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It’s a pity he won’t apply the same principle to all those services currently provided by the existing county districts, which “ain’t broke” either.

Scarborough & Whitby MP Robert Goodwill.Scarborough & Whitby MP Robert Goodwill.
Scarborough & Whitby MP Robert Goodwill.

And, horror of horrors, neither of them want to change York, which, according to the know alls in Whitehall , is too small to be allowed to continue as a unitary authority.

Let’s be clear, it’s only the politicians who want unitarisation. It serves their interest, as it concentrates power into the hands of the political parties, and so completes the politicisation of local government.

North Yorkshire County Council cannot be trusted to delegate anything. There have been area committees for decades. These used to include non-voting representatives of district and parish councils, who were selected on a semi-democratic basis.

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Only a few years ago NYCC abolished the district and parish representatives, so that the only area committee members are now county councillors, and they do what the Tory County executive tells them to.

North Yorkshire has a single small planning committee which decides mineral planning applications for the whole county.

A few years ago it gave planning permission for fracking in Ryedale.

The committee was dominated by Conservatives and there was not one committee member who represented a Ryedale division. I would urge readers not to be fooled by siren calls for “efficiency”. Democracy is expensive, but it is not a luxury. Dictators the world over have always tried to justify their power on grounds of “efficiency”.

From: Roger Backhouse, Orchard Road, Upper Poppleton, York.

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YOU write of “Leeds’s most senior civil servants“ in referring to city council officers (The Yorkshire Post, September 8). That is incorrect. Those who work for city, district and county councils are local government officers. Those who work for central government or its myriad outposts are civil servants. Doubtless if Dominic Cummings has his way they will soon become known as civil serfs.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson

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