Campaigners want to ditch George Osborne’s Yorkshire devolution plans and create Northern Powerhouse
I have to say all this chat about northern powerhouses could be marginalia. I suspect London will continue to grow and drive the economy as its global city hub. We need a parallel debate about rural-urban interactions in England. Still old ties die hard and this article tells us:
Now campaigners want to ditch George Osborne’s city-region devolution plans and make England’s largest county the real Northern Powerhouse. They hope to re-establish Yorkshire’s ancient boundaries and build a “White Rose Parliament” to give the region control over its own destiny once more.
The grassroots county-wide devolution movement brings hope to people on the fringes of Yorkshire who were “severed” from the county in unpopular local government reforms in 1974.
However, the campaigners’ demands have put them at loggerheads with the great Yorkshire cities of Leeds and Sheffield, which are pursuing devolution proposals of their own that could see them having to establish city mayors.
Nigel Sollitt, chairman of the Yorkshire Devolution Movement, which wants a Yorkshire based on old county boundaries to have a regional parliament, said: “Yorkshire as an entity pre-dates Scotland and Wales. You can date it back to 626AD to King Edwin. We have 1,400 years of history and heritage, and we think devolution should be arranged on that basis.