Now it's starting to happen

County to quit regional body
Northwich Guardian
1st February 2005
CHESHIRE County Council is set to deliver a serious blow to the North West Regional Assembly by giving a year's notice to quit the organisation.
The council's Executive was advised by the strategic policy panel to announce that it will withdraw from the assembly on March 31, 2006.
Cheshire's Tory administration is deeply dissatisfied about the management methods, increasing costs, bureaucracy and lack of transparency of the Assembly.
Leaders also doubt whether its current objectives are in the best interests of the people of Cheshire.

Communications Executive member Eveleigh Moore Dutton, recently resigned as vice chairman of the Assembly's European Affairs Key Policy Group, believing that the county's Council Tax payers were not benefiting adequately from membership.
Conservative authorities across the North West would like to see the Assembly's main delegated planning, transport and waste functions transferred to a newly empowered North West Local Government Association.

Council leader Paul Findlow said protracted difficulties had led to them seeking fundamental change, without success.
He said: "There has to be a limit on the amount of member and officer time that we can devote to a body which is being run in an unacceptable manner and has little benefit to the people we are elected to serve.
"We believe it is time for the Assembly to change - or die."

A report to the panel from regional policy advisor Robert Elliott said members should consider the extent to which the NWRA was involved in issues that did not have regional significance.
Opposition leaders Derek Bateman and Sue Proctor also have concerns about the Assembly but want to try to influence it from the inside.