MERSEY Civic Society today called on Liverpool City Region’s six local councils to stop their squabbling and work towards a metro mayor for Merseyside to compete with neighbouring Greater Manchester.
The plea follows the historic signing of an agreement by Manchester and its nine neighbouring councils to opt for a Boris-style elected mayor.
On Merseyside, the so-called hissing cousins seem lights years behind when it comes to civic harmony.
Liverpool’s Mayor Anderson has always backed a metro mayor, and has indicated he’s up for the job. But his enthusiasm is not shared across the Mersey region, with preference for the current "combined authority" model, a form of city region cabinet.
This weekend, leading Labour Party figures from the six councils will be meeting to discuss what should happen.
Some critics say Liverpool’s six local councils need to kiss and make-up and agree to work in harmony, something seen as more important than whether a metro mayor or a regional cabinet is eventually agreed as the future.
The split among Labour leaderships appeared earlier this year when the Combined Authority held its first meeting.
The expectation was that Mayor Anderson would become chairman, given the prominence of Liverpool in the city region. Instead, Wirral’s Labour leader, Phil Davies, was chosen while Anderson and Sefton leader Peter Dowd were out of the room.
Merseyside Civic Society Chairman Dr Peter Brown said: “The Government has indicated its commitment to the creation of the first metro-wide elected mayor outside London to serve Greater Manchester.
“Merseyside Civic Society welcomes this overdue recognition of the role of local democracy in shaping the future of the northern powerhouse and believes that this devolution of power and responsibility should be extended to Liverpool City Region.
“However, for this to happen, the six constituent authorities have to stop squabbling between themselves and present a united front in facing up to the challenges that they share.
“This is an unprecedented opportunity for the city region to follow the Manchester lead in speaking with one voice and reaping the benefits of direct responsibility for a wider range of activities and associated expenditure, including housing, planning and policing.”
In a statement, the civic society said it was calling on the LCR Combined Authority, the Local Enterprise Partnership and the six individual authorities to examine how Greater Manchester has secured the Government’s confidence that it can discharge this higher level of responsibility and then to identify the essential steps that the Liverpool City Region needs to take to enable it to move towards securing the same degree of devolved power to which it should be equally entitled.
The 10 leaders in Greater Manchester appeared in a highly publicised event with Chancellor George Osborne signing the accord to back a metro mayor to be in place by 2017.
As a reward Greater Manchester will be given sweeping new powers, including a Transport for Manchester’body to match the power Boris Johnson’s Transport for London has over buses and tube services in the capital. A £2bn goodybag would also wing its way to Manchester.
The fear is that if a Boris mayor is installed in Manchester, other parts of the North West, including Liverpool, would be shunted into the shadows.
Indeed Osborne hinted that he’d like to see Manchester’s new very best friend, Leeds, as the second conurbation to have an elected metro mayor as part of a cross Pennine Northern Powerhouse.
