North Yorkshire mayor is no substitute for local councils – Yorkshire Post Letters

THE proposals to abolish the local authorities in North Yorkshire, and to replace them with one unitary authority in order to accommodate a newly elected Mayor, are fundamentally misguided (The Yorkshire Post, July 11).

If implemented, the proposals would take local government further away from the people it is meant to serve.

Sadly, the proposal is just the latest in a long line of reforms that have produced greater centralisation of local government powers.

It began with the Local Government Act of 1972, which abolished the old Ridings, as well as County Boroughs and Urban and Rural District Councils, all of which were much closer to the people they represented than the new authorities created under that Act.

The problem is that the towns and villages that once ran themselves very effectively and economically are now reduced to being small cogs in bigwheels, with no autonomy of their own. And that applies to some of the larger towns in Yorkshire.

For example, Dewsbury was a County Borough until it was merged into Kirklees in 1974 when it lost its independence. Can anyone claim that Dewsbury has benefited in any significant way from that change of status?

Centralisation, which was a trend even before the 1972 Act, removes the ability of local people to allocate resources as they wish, instead giving that power to central government.

The creation of a Mayor for North Yorkshire would in no way compensate for the loss of local identity that would come with this proposal.

From: Coun Paul Andrews (Ind), Malton Ward, Ryedale District Council.

I AM dismayed that the Government wants to blackmail and bully all North Yorkshire authorities and the City of York into merging into huge new unitary authorities.

Big authorities result in fewer councillors, which means less democracy and greater politicisation.

You have single party control exercised through “executive” committees, which marginalise ordinary members.

Independent councillors, who are only interested in serving their community and have no other loyalty, have very little influence.

This is not what local government is about

The minister should be told that the price for a mayor he is asking for is too high, and North Yorkshire can do without one.

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James Mitchinson

Editor