The government announced today that a number of areas have been taken forward for the Devolution Priority Programme (DPP) set out in the English Devolution White Paper. Although all of our neighbours who applied - Greater Essex, Sussex & Brighton, Hampshire & Solent, Surrey (in the latter case, a slightly different application) - were accepted on to the programme, Kent and Medway were not.
As I have set out in a number of interviews today, this is a severe setback, leaving Kent as a devolution desert when all our neighbours will benefit from the increased powers, funding and national voice that will be denied to the 1.9 million residents of Kent and Medway.
It is also an incomprehensible decision with no clear and logical rationale. We are told that it is because Kent and Medway are local authorities of very different size who could not operate together effectively in a mayoral authority. This argument was never made to us before and flies in the face of disparities of size of authorities in areas which have been approved - and existing models elsewhere, such as North Yorkshire and the City of York.
We will continue to press for a fuller explanation of this decision, and to get the benefits of devolution to the residents we represent as soon as possible.
You can find our media release, and my reaction here.
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