The North East must “leapfrog” other parts of England as it plays catch-up in trying to finally seal a new devolution deal, the North of Tyne mayor says.
There are fresh hopes of a new mayor being elected by 2024 to serve Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland, Gateshead, Sunderland, and South Tyneside – in a pact that could bring a raft of new powers and more than £1bn to the region.
If a deal can be struck between local leaders and the government, it would mark a long-awaited mending of a rift between councils on either side of the Tyne that saw previous devolution talks fall apart at the 11th hour in 2016.
While Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland did split away to secure their own limited devolution settlement after that collapse, the lack of a bigger, unifying deal for the region has prevented the North East getting the same kind of decision-making powers and funding afforded to other regions – particularly to tackle the crucial issue of major rail and bus upgrades.
Jamie Driscoll, who has been mayor in the North of Tyne since 2019, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that he now wants to see the North East “leapfrog” the bigger deals that places like Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire have already and take full advantage of the government’s public commitment to negotiate an expanded settlement in the recent Levelling Up white paper.
Transport is unquestionably top of local leaders’ wishlist, in order to unlock a promised share of a £4.2bn funding pot for upgrades across England and to secure the widely-backed reopening of the mothballed Leamside railway line.
While formal negotiations on a new settlement are yet to start, the Labour mayor hopes that agreement can also be reached on devolving powers and funding on issues including education, skills, housing, and research and development.
Mr Driscoll says he also wants funding to tackle the climate crisis to be a “key part” of any deal, saying that existing cash available to local authorities to try and reach Net Zero is “some way behind government rhetoric”.
He said: “We [the mayor and local council leaders] are all of a position that we want transport devolving and want the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement.
“We are all of an opinion that we want the existing level of funding we have got per capita and for that not to go down – for an LA6 area that would take us to just over £35m per year, compared to £20m for the North of Tyne.”
Knowing that major transformation projects like the Leamside line would take many years to come to fruition even if they were signed off tomorrow, Mr Driscoll added that there is “definitely a sense or urgency amongst everybody involved in the region” to get a new devolution agreement done as fast as possible.
May 2024, when Mr Driscoll’s term comes to an end, is being talked about as a realistic date for a new North East mayor to be elected, though he believes it could even happen “at a push” in 2023 if work progresses quickly.
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However, he warned that the content and timeframe of a deal may well depend on whether ministers are “willing to write a cheque”.
The left-wing mayor, who has already thrown his hat into the ring for the prospective new mayoral job, added: “It is going to be the case that areas have a mayor will be heard by the government and areas that don’t won’t be. That is not a prediction from me, that is policy, that is what the white paper says.
“Because we have a mayoral authority here that has a track record of delivery, that puts us in a stronger position with the government – we can say we have brought these firms here, created these jobs, trained all these people, we know how to do it.
“It also means that the programmes we have up and running here, we can bring the rest of the region into. And we will take on board their priorities too.”
County Durham had been part of the original plans for a mayoral combined authority in the North East, but looks set to be excluded from the new one – having instead decided to pursue its own county devolution deal.
