Mayor confusion could see 'delay' to devolution plans

South Yorkshire council leaders are to ask the Government to clarify suggestions that Theresa May is ready to drop the demand of David Cameron’s government that areas which want so-called devolution deals must agree to have an elected mayor.

However, the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority has agreed to continue with its existing plans, agreed with then chancellor George Osborne last year, for the moment.

Coun Glyn Jones, Doncaster’s deputy executive mayor, said: “Along this journey we have maintained we do not need a mayor to make this particularly successful in its own right.

“Given recent developments, such as Brexit and the change of government that’s come to be, there are various elements of conversation that is coming through saying there may be differences from this government to the previous government on the necessity of an elected mayor.

“I feel that it is necessary to explore that, to find out if we do need an elected mayor in this capacity or if we can continue as a combined authority using the authority we’ve currently got and the collective agreement we usually get on these issues.”

He added: “It may be that we require a delay in the implementation of this but hopefully that will not occur.”

The combined authority is likely to have to take a final decision over whether to go-ahead with the deal in its current form at the end of October.

That will allow parliament to put the necessary legal measuresin place so the mayoral election can take place next May.

A well-placed source said “lines of communication” on the issue of the mayor were already open with Government officials.

Combined authority chairman Sir Steve Houghton, the leader of Barnsley Council, said the elected mayor had always been a “contentious issue” with his and other authorities agreeing to the idea on the basis that the Government’s position was “no mayor, deal”.

He added: “I’ll be frank, I wouldn’t want to be in a position where we went down a mayoral route only to find three months later the Government’s doing different deals in different parts of the country without mayors.”