Chesterfield Borough Council has voted to apply to join a devolution deal with Sheffield City Region Combined Authority (SCR CA), despite not being physically connected to the city region.
If the plans go through, they would eventually see transport powers relating to the borough passed from Derbyshire CC, the county in which it is located, to the elected mayor for the city region.
The proposal could be the first to make use of a provision within Section 12 of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016, which allows the communities secretary to approve a devolution deal where part of a combined authority area ‘is separated from the rest of it by one or more local government areas that are not within the area’.
Communities secretary Greg Clark, who would approve the plan
Last week, Derbyshire CC leader Cllr Anne Western urged Chesterfield not to rush into the deal, warning that ‘the future of local government in Derbyshire hangs in the balance’ and that the decision ‘could potentially change the lives of people living in Chesterfield forever’.
A spokesman for Chesterfield BC stressed that the decision to apply to join the SCR CA would be subject to public consultation and approval from the Government.
He told Transport Network that the council was in the ‘very early days’ of planning for the change and that the full details would be worked up between now and the election of the city region’s mayor, next year.
A paper put to councillors at a meeting on Thursday night stated that: ‘A significant amount of time and effort would need to be spent to scope out and implement the transfer of powers from the county council, via Chesterfield, to the SCR CA.’
It continued: ‘The advice from DCLG is that if Chesterfield became a full member of SCR CA and the county council did not, then an order would be made to transfer powers from the county council in order that the SCR CA had comparable powers and functions across the whole of its full membership geography.’
The paper advised: ‘Since the legislation is new and a transfer of this sort has not taken place before, there is not yet clarity as to the process for such a transfer nor the precise scope involved and further detailed work would be needed with the county council, the SCR CA and central government.’
Councillors were also advised that the SCR devolution deal may need to be a staged process and that the transfer of powers ‘may also result in additional financial risks and responsibilities sat with the council’.
Following a meeting to discuss the proposed North Midlands devolution deal, Derbyshire’s leader Cllr Western issued a statement that only implicitly referred to Chesterfield’s decision.
She said: ‘Clearly the situation may have changed but we remain convinced that this is an opportunity we can't afford to miss for the sake of our residents and local business.’
