An elected mayor will bring new powers and resources to boost Liverpool’s fortunes
By Joe Anderson
—Liverpool city council has voted to forgo a referendum on the option of an elected mayor, and instead to go straight to a mayoral vote in the city on 3 May this year.
I have always been open-minded about the issue of an elected mayor. I have long been strongly in favour of the idea of an elected mayor for the whole of Liverpool city-region, not just Liverpool – a mayor for Merseyside – but this was an idea that did not have support across the region.
And my concern with a mayor just for Liverpool was that, without significant extra powers and resources to make the post different to that of a council leader, what was the point? That is what I said to the government. And so they offered Liverpool a deal: move to a mayoral model, and we will give you the extra powers and resources you need.
Since then, I have to admit, I have been convinced that the role of Liverpool city mayor will bring positive changes to our city, with over £130m of resources available to spend on our priorities, such as investing in schools and building new homes. The extra powers around job creation to tackle unemployment represents a significant devolution of power to Liverpool from Whitehall.
And with the new mayoral development zones and another enterprise zone, we can finally rebalance Liverpool’s economy away from a reliance on public sector funding towards a stronger private sector. These zones will attract new firms and industries to the city and will ultimately generate the growth worth hundreds of millions of pounds to create the jobs we so desperately need.
A mayor for Liverpool will be able to fight our city’s corner. They would have a mandate from the entire city to speak on behalf of every resident, and be a powerful advocate for Liverpool at home and abroad.
Of course this represents a risk for Labour, and for me personally. We are firmly in control of Liverpool city council, and will be for a long time to come. We do not need to do this. But with crumbling schools, boarded-up houses, and with some communities facing worklessness of 50 per cent or more, the offer of taking extra powers from a Tory government to be implemented by a Labour council to deal with these problems as we see fit is an option we cannot turn down.
A mayor for Liverpool will be able to stand up for Liverpool, and will provide leadership that we have never known before. A Labour mayor for Liverpool
will do all of that, while putting the extra resources and powers to work in
the interests of those who need help the most.
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Joe Anderson is leader of Liverpool city council
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Councillor Anderson, why don’t you go the whole hog and abolish 4 yearly elections for the Council? The failure to hold a referendum here is lamentable, and the excuse I heard, of the ‘expense’ of a referendum, could just as easily be used to excuse you from holding elections at all. My guess is that there was a risk that the good burghers of Liverpool might not actually vote for a Mayor at all. Indeed, you state “I have always been open-minded about the issue of an elected mayor”, but not so open-minded that you’d put it to a popular vote.
Why should you believe Tory/Lib-Dem “promises” of extra resources? No such assurance has been given across the board to all major cities. The Spectator sees mayors as regaining a a Tory toehold in the major industrial cities of thr Midlands and North. I fear the Greeks (read Tories) when apparently bearing gifts.