Portsmouth last to approve county-wide devolution bid
Portsmouth City Council has signed off plans for a combined authority covering Hampshire to Parliament for approval.
The council’s cabinet members were the last of the four upper-tier councils across the county to sign off plans for the government’s devolution agenda.
Devolution involves the transfer of powers and resources from Westminster to local communities, such as in London and Greater Manchester.
Locally, there are plans for a combined authority comprising Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, which would have an elected mayor from May 2028.
Elections were supposed to take place this year, but were delayed. As a result, the combined authority would be led in partnership between the county’s four upper-tier authorities until the mayoral elections.
The authorities include Portsmouth City Council, Southampton City Council, Hampshire County Council and the Isle of Wight Council.
All four authorities have given the green light to the proposal, with Portsmouth being the last to do so yesterday.
Councillor Steve Pitt, leader of the council, described the decision as “momentous” for the county as it’s “the first time that all the upper tier authorities have approved a plan”.
The plan, or statutory instrument, will be sent to the government, which will lay it before Parliament. If Parliament approves it, then the new authority would be set up at that stage – likely to be somewhere between six and ten weeks, plus parliamentary recess times.
Officers said failure to take the opportunity now “would likely to be to the detriment of Portsmouth with less funding available and any future devolution offers likely to be far less generous”.
Councillor Darren Sanders, cabinet member for housing and tackling homelessness, said: “This is going to be Britain’s sixth biggest devolved body – more than many other parts of the country that are more famous than this area.
“Devolution is incredibly important, getting power out of London means economies are better, means communities are more in control.
“Residents want to feel more in control of their lives – this is one way of doing that.”
Council reports state that the proposals would give the authority extra powers, including the option to introduce a visitor levy if approved through a national government consultation.
They would also open up access to more funding to support growth, as the new combined authority will be in receipt of £1.3bn over 32 years, and increase representation at a national level, including in the Council of Nations.
The changes are expected to strengthen working between councils and government, placing the area in the first wave of Mayoral Combined County Authorities.
Devolution is different from Local Government Reorganisation, which is another Labour government agenda that aims to replace the county-district tier system of local government with large unitary authorities.