London Mayor handed even more powers denied to regions

One of the UK’s most powerful politicians in charge of a multi-billion pound budget, the Mayor has been able to take over the functions of the London Development Agency – which is being abolished along with Yorkshire Forward.

He has also been handed control of its £300m of assets to use for the capital’s regeneration, something denied to councils in this region with Yorkshire Forward’s assets unless they paid market value. A body called Promote London will get £14m a year to attract visitors and businesses to the capital while responsibility for inward investment to Yorkshire has been taken over by Whitehall.

And he has been able to ensure key transport projects like the £16bn east-west Crossrail line survived the spending cuts.

While London has always been in an economic league of its own, the growing power gap raises concerns at a time when the Government is seeking to “rebalance” the economy. The ability of the Mayor to have the ear of Ministers also causes concern when the role of Yorkshire Minister has been scrapped and the Prime Minister has not seen through a promise to install City Ministers.

Bradford East MP David Ward said it was wrong to abolish Yorkshire Forward so quickly without a proper growth plan in place.

“London has a statutory responsibility for producing an economic strategy and has the funds to support that strategy. The concern is it puts all of the regions of England at a disadvantage and certainly until the Local Enterprise Partnerships are up and running it must leave them at a disadvantage for some really big issues like inward investment.”

It also fuels concerns over the bias towards the capital. In 2008/09 £641 was spent on transport for every Londoner, compared with just £248 in Yorkshire.

Unique among the leaders of English cities, the Mayor of London has vast powers over transport, housing, regeneration and economic development.

As well as drawing up a city-wide London Plan to map out development, taking the final decision over strategically-important planning applications and taking charge of improving skills, he also oversees Transport for London, including fare-setting powers to control how much money is available to invest in improvements.

Those powers are being extended further, allowing the Mayor to set up Mayoral Development Corporations to spearhead the regeneration of deprived areas.

The Government plans to create elected Mayors in Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Wakefield – subject to “yes” votes in a referendum in each city – with the promise of extra powers. Yet more than a year into the coalition, Ministers have still not explained what those powers will be.