West Midlands Combined Authority a potential threat to our green fields warns Sandison
There was a sort of debate on proposals for a West Midlands Combined Authority at Rugby Borough Council last night (21st July 2015).
The leaders of all three parties said they could not sign up to a deal unless there was something in it for the town's residents. The problem was that no one really knows what it all means with the Council's conservative leader, Cllr Michael Stokes, at one point saying it means "different things to different authorities".
The Labour leaders of the old Metropolitan Districts in the West Midlands Region (ie Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton etc) are proposing to get together again just like they did in the old West Midlands County Council - only this time they are proposing to take Warwickshire with them - see http://rugby.lib.dm/a4ZzG .
Coventry City Council had previously signed up to a "City Deal" which embraced Coventry, Warwickshire and Hinckley & Bosworth. However Cllr Stokes told the Council that now Coventry would not consider any arrangements other than the deal with Birmingham and the other West Midlands metropolitan districts.
There was a lot of talk in the Council Chamber about whether or not a West Midlands Combined Authority would have an elected mayor. Cllr Stokes said that an elected mayor was not being proposed because the authority was not seeking to have powers over the police or health. (Why then are they proposing setting up a mental health commission?). Cllr Jerry Roodhouse pointed out that only that very day the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, had written about "Strong city regions led by elected mayors".
Cllr Neil Sandison criticised the West Midlands Combined Authorities launch document for its policies on transport and land use. He said their transport policies were weak and that proposing "A freight depot at Ansty is not good enough". Cllr Stokes agreed with this point saying that the people drawing up the plan "Didn't know where Ansty is".
Cllr Sandison said that the threat was that a "born-again regional spatial strategy would see our green fields designated as a logistic hub and dormitory settlements for Coventry and Birmingham".