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01
Sept
Assurances issued over North Yorkshire’s share of devolution funding
The leader of North Yorkshire Council has issued assurances that he will argue for extra funding at a newly-formed mayoral combined authority amid concerns another local authority is getting a disproportionate amount of government grants.
Conservative Councillor Carl Les, said as “one of the three legs” of the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority he and the council’s deputy leader would be “arguing for North Yorkshire schemes”.
Cllr Les was responding to claims that North Yorkshire would receive a fraction of government grants its 623,000 population justified while York’s 204,000 population was getting the lion’s share,
A report being presented to a meeting of the combined authority’s five-member board, which also includes Labour mayor David Skaith and two Labour-led York council leaders, state decisions to award £1.5m and £2.8m to brownfield housing schemes in North Yorkshire and York respectively were approved in July.
The meeting on Friday (September 5) will consider approving a further £224,000 for a brownfield scheme in Gargrave, near Skipton while supporting more than £3m for brownfield schemes in York, which would generate more than ten times the number of affordable houses than the North Yorkshire scheme.
Another report being considered by the combined authority board states how about £2m from the Mayoral Investment Fund is set to be handed to each local authority for “priority projects”, such as the Scarborough Harbour Boat Hoist, a junction on the A61 at Harrogate, and city centre regeneration in York.
Leader of North Yorkshire Council’s Independent group, Cllr Stuart Parsons, said with the mayor’s vote at the five-member board of the combined authority, decisions were likely to be “more Labour than Conservative”.
He said:
A number of us said from day one that it was going to be grossly unfair, but we weren’t listened to. Unfortunately North Yorkshire does not appear to be using its size and population as a lever for funding.
It beggars belief why all this money is being poured into schemes that will not alleviate the problems of the vast majority of our homeless and those looking for housing.
Surely affordable units would benefit North Yorkshire as much as York. There seems to be something strange going on.
Cllr Les said it was to be expected that there would be more brownfield sites in a city than a rural environment, that North Yorkshire had got more out of the government’s Net Zero Fund than York had, and that it was “still very early days” for the combined authority.
He said:
It is a concern that people are right to express, but we need to see how the funding streams develop over time and clearly what North Yorkshire needs to do is ensure we have an adequate number of schemes coming forward.
I don’t think we can be as simplistic as to say as North Yorkshire’s population is three times the size of York we should automatically have three times the amount of funding.
Schemes have to be judged on their merits, rather than just where they are located, and when you look at the mayoral investment streams one is the High Street Development Fund, and clearly there are more high streets in North Yorkshire than York.
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