...from an East of England Assembly member

Hunts Post
NEWS
Walters' World
24 Nov 2004 16:39
REGIONALISM RIP
HOW delighted I was to read the result of the Regional Assemblies referendum in the North East. There can be no argument about how comprehensively the people rejected Mr Prescott's dream. And this was in the region thought to be most amenable to the idea.

With a turnout above 40 per cent and a 78 per cent vote against, it is impossible for anyone to claim that apathy ruled the day and lost the battle.

Our region (The East of England) was already right at the bottom of the Government's hit list for directly elected regional assemblies; so I hope the idea will quietly be forgotten.The result gave rise to some correspondence. I have received a mass of letters asking why we have a regional assembly in the East without having had a referendum. I thought it might be useful to explain.

We originally formed The East of England Local Government Conference covering the six counties of this region.It allowed local authorities in the region to get together to look at things appropriate in a regional context. Its members were not directly elected; but they were all elected members of local authorities.

The Government was so convinced that directly elected regional assemblies would soon be the norm, that it designated our alternative, voluntary, chamber as "The Regional Planning Body" for the East of England - the body that would make planning decisions for pan-regional items.

However, it also passed legislation making it compulsory for "at least 30 per cent" of the assembly places to be held by "stakeholders." Stakeholders are not elected (either to a local authority or to the voluntary chamber).

They are appointed.Exactly who decides which "stakeholder organisations" get a seat (and how that seat is allocated to a specific individual) is amystery to me. I am sure there is a piece of paper somewhere that explains it.

At the same time, the Government insisted that we changed the name of the chamber to The East of England Regional Assembly (EERA).That is the body which, earlier this month, accepted the need for 478,000 new homes in the region between 2001 and 2021.

Many of the letters I received complained that EERA is an "unelected QUANGO" and has no democratic mandate to make that sort of decision. To a certain extent they are right; the stakeholder representatives have no democratic mandate. But all the local authority members do - and all local authorities in the region are represented.I am the Cambridgeshire representative. I am a democratically elected county councillor and the rest of that number elected me to represent them at EERA.I claim, therefore, to have a democratic mandate.

However, as the Government's dreams recede, perhaps we should ask them to re-examine the democratic justification for allowing stakeholders to be voting members on regional planning issues.I suspect that we will get a frosty response; for the system would now require primary legislation to change it back to the Local Government Conference model. But it would be nice to watch them squirm as they explain how their placemen supposedly make good the previous democratic deficit.