17:21 Thursday 17th March 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
The East Anglia Devolution Agreement
CHRIS MANN: It’s been twenty four hours since the Chancellor George Osborne used the Budget to unveil devolution plans for East Anglia, handing more powers to Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. There would be in his plans a single authority for East Anglia with an elected Mayor. The Communities Secretary Greg Clark has been visiting Huntingdon today. He’s been telling the BBC exactly how devolution would work for the county.
GREG CLARK: So on transport, of course if you’re building new homes, one of the problems in the past is that the homes have gone up, but often the transport has not been in improved, so the roads have got more congested. So what the council leaders have negotiated in this deal is a big fund, nearly a billion pounds,of money to be put in the hands of locals, to make sure that when homes are built for example, or indeed when new commercial premises are built, there can be investment in the roads, in the railways, to make sure that the area continues to flow. But also for housing, we know right across the area when jobs are being created, people do need to live close by them. And they want to get a home of their own. There has been a housing shortage, so there’s money specifically again, over £175 million, to invest over the next few years in more homes here, with local people taking those decisions. So it’s a big big transfer, from rather than decisions made way down in London, have those decisions made locally.
CHRIS MANN: Cambridge City Council is the only authority out of twenty two that doesn’t support the plans. Labour’s Lewis Herbert is the Council’s Leader.
LEWIS HERBERT: The money on the table is about £1 million per council per year, and that really isn’t going to make any difference. Our infrastructure needs hundreds of millions of pounds just for Cambridge. We’ve only had three weeks to actually make our case to Government. Not enough money, nothing for housing. A bit like the Budget, there’ll be nothing for lower income and middle income people needing housing.
CHRIS MANN: But the Communities Secretary Mr Clark hopes the Council will change its mind.
BBC: Let me just ask you just about the practicalities of that deal. Three counties, with Peterborough as well. Is it really practical to take that forward, when you don’t have the likes of Cambridge City and the Local Enterprise Partnership on board? Because without Cambridge, how can that really be of any meaning?
GREG CLARK: Well it’s early days, and certainly I hope that when the City of Cambridge considers the amount of investment that is open to them and to their residents, as well as Cambridgeshire and the other counties, that they will see that actually there’s great benefits for everyone there. And of course when it comes to the City of Cambridge, a fantastic global success, but a lot of the challenges, you know, benefits of success that Cambridge has, the challenges that it gives on housing for example, on transport congestion, on skills, a lot of the solutions are not just within the city limits. They go into their neighbouring areas. So that’s what this deal does. It brings everyone together, so you’ve got better transport, rail and road across the area, places that are able to train people to take up those jobs. And crucially housing for people, young people who want a home of their own, and can put down the roots here, or stay here if they’ve lived here.
CHRIS MANN: Well let’s hear from a senior local Conservative, the Leader of Huntingdonshire District Council, Jason Ablewhite believes that had devolution happened twenty years ago, the A14 would have been upgraded by now.
JASON ABLEWHITE: Everybody locally knew that that local need was there. I think it’s always a battle going to Government to say look, you know, we need a big chunk of cash to do this. The whole point of devolution is that this will be about local decision making. And if I take Huntingdonshire for example, where we’ve got a lot of big brownfield sites, former military sites, which are very challenging in their geography and where they are, to deliver those we need infrastructure investment . If we’ve got that local power, if we’ve got local money that we can put into that, then that’s got to be a positive for the future. And it helps us with our plans. I think in ten years time I’d like to see East Anglia as an absolute powerhouse. We already know that economically it’s one of the largest economies in the UK. And in terms of GVA, between East Anglia, London and the South East, that is a big chunk of the UK PLC GVA every year. And I think a geography that’s wider, the governance is going to be an issue. I can see that because of the size, the sheer scale and size of it. But I would fundamentally love to see an Eastern Powerhouse.
CHRIS MANN: So we’ve heard from the Government proposing it. We have heard from there a council leader who accepts it. We’ve also heard from a council leader who doesn’t, Lewis Herbert for Labour. Let’s bring in, now that we have more details, Nick Clarke, former Conservative Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, who last year defected to UKIP. Hello Nick.
NICK CLARKE: Good evening Chris.
CHRIS MANN: If you were still running the County Council of course you’d be involved in negotiating all this. Would you be in favour?
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