Changes in political colour, internal rows and natural churn have prompted a wave of new leaders to take control in some of the biggest and most well known councils across England.
Kevin Bentley (Con) has replaced long-serving leader
David Finch (Con) as leader of Essex CC, after Cllr Finch decided not to run for re-election. Cllr Bentley, who is well known in local government circles as chair of the Local Government Association’s people and places board and former chair of its Brexit taskforce, has already set out his new cabinet’s agenda, built on “three guiding principles of ambition, renewal and equality”.
Shock as well-known sector figures lose their seats
County Councils Network members are reeling from news that their chair David Williams (Con) has been ousted from his Hertfordshire CC seat by just 41 votes, meaning he also lost his national chairmanship.
Elsewhere, other longstanding local government figures from both main parties have also been unseated or face leadership challenges locally.
Although the Conservatives secured a majority of 14 in Hertfordshire, their leader Cllr Williams, who has been CCN chair since 2019, was narrowly beaten by Liberal Democrat candidate Paul de Kort in his seat of Harpenden North East by 2,063 votes to 2,022.
CCN’s executive committee will now work with the Conservatives, which remain the network s largest political group, to put in place an interim leader ahead of an internal election. A new chairman elect will be formally confirmed in September.
LGC investigates the delays and funding reductions of the government’s flagship towns fund.
The extent of the delays, complexity and funding shortfalls that have beset the government’s towns fund has emerged in an LGC investigation.
The £3.6bn fund was launched in the pre-Covid summer of 2019 to stave off widespread urban decline, with 101 towns being invited to work up regeneration projects.
However, despite the intense urgency of the need to rescue town centres, until this month’s Budget only seven places had had their final funding amounts confirmed in towns deals worth £178m, with just £98m paid out: £16m for town deal boards to spearhead plans and £82m in accelerated funding of up to £1m to help areas respond to the “immediate challenges of Covid-19”.
New government levelling up projects are being funded partly by diverting money originally earmarked for the Towns Fund, it has emerged.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government source confirmed that around half of the government s new Levelling Up Fund next year will come from reshuffling former Towns Fund money. It has also emerged that £175m of new funding for freeports will include money previously earmarked for the Towns Fund.
Two years on from when the Towns Fund first launched - offering cash to kickstart capital projects in 101 towns - it has been hampered by delays, with resources diverted to deal with the pandemic. Only seven areas have so far had their final funding amounts confirmed, in deals worth £178m.