Crunch talks to be held about elected mayor for Oxfordshire

In a bid to win hundreds of millions of pounds in funding, the six biggest councils are set to ask the Government to create the role and devolve major new powers to the county.

Emerging proposals would see the mayor lead a combined authority with control over transport and housing budgets, as well as skills funding for training and further education colleges.

Senior figures stressed discussions were ongoing but told the Oxford Mail there was now broad support among council leaders for a mayor.

• Cash from a devolution could be spent on traffic-busting improvements

And in a cross-party report published today, they have been urged to use the 'window of opportunity' to press ahead.

The 27-page document by Oxford City Council’s scrutiny committee concludes a deal involving a mayor has the best chance of success and could lead to 'very substantial' investment in areas such as housing and public transport.

Committee chairman Andrew Gant said: “We need to be bold and seize this opportunity.

“This has to be about delivering the best deal for people in Oxfordshire and not about politicians protecting their own patches.”

The committee’s review recommends Oxfordshire looks to Cambridge and Peterborough as a model, where a devolution deal of £800m has been struck with the Government.

That arrangement includes £70m to build social housing in Cambridge and there are hopes something similar in Oxford could help tackle the housing shortage.

City council leader Bob Price, pictured above, said he was confident agreement could be reached but warned there were still key “points of contention”.

He said: “The concept of an elected mayor is still not universally accepted among [backbench] councillors but, assuming they can be persuaded, the question is also what powers he or she might have and what powers a combined authority might have.

“Those are the points of contention as we finalise things and, like all these things, the devil will be in the detail.

“There is certainly a window of opportunity though and we have to take advantage of it.”

The date when Oxfordshire’s devolution proposal will be submitted to the Government has not yet been decided, but at a meeting in December council leaders pledged it would be at the “earliest opportunity”.

Since then the district councils – Cherwell, West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and Oxford – have all backed proposals for a mayor and combined authority in principle through non-binding motions. Oxfordshire County Council has yet to formally do so.

John Cotton, leader of South Oxfordshire District Council said: “All eyes are now on the county council and whether it will back these proposals.”

District councils claim separate proposals for a single, unitary council for all of Oxfordshire, currently being developed by the county council, could jeopardise a devolution bid.

But that suggestion was rejected by county council leader Ian Hudspeth, pictured above.

He said: “I have always been clear that we can work on proposals for a unitary authority and for devolution at the same time.

“[The Government] has explicitly said that is possible.”

When asked if his council would back the devolution proposals, he said the issue of what planning powers the mayor would have remained “a big stumbling block”.

At present district councils have proposed the mayor and combined authority could create a non-statutory ‘spatial plan’ for Oxfordshire that would be considered when Local Plans – the blueprints for where development can take place in an area - were being drawn up.

But Mr Hudspeth said the mayor’s powers should go further. He said: “To make planning and transport work together properly, the mayor should have more influence over spatial planning.

“It cannot just be someone who is globetrotting all over the place, otherwise we are just adding another layer of local government and creating more confusion.”

The review produced by Oxford City Council’s scrutiny committee also called for a new way to overcome “deadlocks in strategic decision making” that had delayed progress on building new homes in the county.

The committee will meet to discuss the report on Thursday at 6pm in Oxford Town Hall, St Aldate’s.