CCN chair's devo pledge

摘要

The new chair of the County Councils' Network (CCN) has said unitarisation is 'dead' as the Government promises deeper devolution with more mayoralties.Leader of Surrey CC Cllr Tim Oliver, who takes over as CCN chair this week, told The MJ that 'things have moved on' since the Government confirmed the three latest local government reorganisations - in North Yorkshire, Somerset and Cumbria - earlier in the summer.Unitarisation is 'I think pretty much dead in the water', Cllr Oliver said.He added: 'We need to get on now with rebuilding our economies, getting people healthy and improving their wellbeing.'The unitarisation process is a couple of years that would delay getting on [with that] and shift focus from what we really need to concentrate on. We need to stop tinkering with these things now.'