Warwickshire-wide mayor calls from one of county’s most experienced figures

ONE of Warwickshire’s most experienced councillors is making the case for the county to have its own elected mayor serving above two new councils.

Councillor Alan Boad (Lib Dem, Leamington Lillington) has spent more than half of his life serving on Warwick District Council, one of six authorities set to be disbanded to form new unitary authorities as part of local government reforms.

Warwickshire County Council is advocating for one new county-wide body to take on all services currently handled by two levels of council – the county, then the districts and boroughs.

The five districts and boroughs have joined forces to explore the option of two unitaries, one in the south covering the districts of Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon and one in the north to cover Rugby, Nuneaton & Bedworth and North Warwickshire.

Sitting above that is the national government’s intention to roll out devolution, handing over more power on areas including housing, regeneration, adult skills and transport services to regional decision makers, as happens with the West Midlands Combined Authority now.

What Warwickshire does on that front could inform how the debate on whether to go for one or two unitary councils – a county-wide strategic or mayoral authority would require two unitaries to feed into it.

Guidance from government papers suggests strategic authorities should cover areas with populations of 1.5 million and above, well below Warwickshire’s 620,000, but Cllr Boad highlighted the current process going through in Cumbria where the population is around 500,000.

Cumbria had seven councils – one county and six districts and boroughs – until 2023 when it formed two unitary authorities. There is now an ongoing consultation on plans to elect a mayor to sit above that.

Speaking at Warwick District Council last week, Cllr Boad highlighted Warwickshire’s lack of alternatives to going alone.

“At this stage, I’m favouring the mayoral strategic authority,” he said.

“We are going to have an authority, we might as well get all the benefits of it and not preclude any but that needs to be discussed to see how we go.

“Looking at the Cumbria model – forget the (population) numbers – that appears to work.

“If we want to go that way and stay alone then we need to have two unitaries. The county is ignoring that. I don’t know why.

“Unless things change the West Midlands Combined Authority doesn’t want us, Coventry and Solihull don’t want us and you can understand why. Looking at the populations, Warwickshire would probably be the biggest body and whether we agree or not, from the outside the West Midlands would see that as a load of Tory votes potentially coming in to rock their plans. I suspect that is why no one will move.

“I believe this leaves it open to see where we could go. The Cumbria model looks quite reasonable and the numbers are better (in Warwickshire), they’re not going on with the government’s ridiculously high numbers which don’t even apply to what they have now.”

He added that two separate councils made sense based on the “quite stark” differences between north and south Warwickshire.

“There is no relationship,” he argued.

“Maybe it would be different if we weren’t cut in half by Coventry but we are and the development of north and south Warwickshire have been completely different.

“The report is quite clear, it is not likely that the districts and boroughs will all have the same answer and it is the work that is then needed to get a commonality.

“I don’t think the county will change, they seem to be so wedded to their single thing which I think is going to fail because it can’t work.”

Leader Councillor Ian Davison (Green, Leamington Brunswick) said the strategic authority element would be “a key decision for us” but that district officials were not confident about getting a clear response from government over what could work “any time soon and maybe not before November”, the deadline for final submissions on new council structures.

He also noted that like previous attempts at reorganisation, plans could yet hit the buffers or at the very least be delayed.

“We still don’t actually know whether it will happen,” said Cllr Davison.

“There are priority (cases) that are due to go live in April 2028, on the current government timetable we are also due to go live in April 2028. That doesn’t seem realistic to me. We will have to wait to see.”