Hull: “I believe we have the talent and drive to make the most of what devolution brings”

Under its Devolution Priority Programme, six new areas have recently been earmarked for new mayor-led authorities from May 2026. When those new mayors eventually take office, 80% of the country will  be covered by a mayoral authority.

 

That transition will happen sooner in Hull and East Yorkshire when devolution occurs this May, but the journey to reach this point has been anything but fast.

Exactly a decade ago 18 council leaders united behind the idea of a directly-elected mayor for the whole of Yorkshire. Watching their counterparts across the Pennines in Greater Manchester embracing devolution and unlocking substantial funding, they wanted the same for a region with a bigger population than Scotland.

 

 

However, competing internal rivalries - some political, others historic – would eventually undermine the bid – known as One Yorkshire.

 

In 2019 the government kicked the proposal into touch with communities minister James Brokenshire claiming a single strategic authority for Yorkshire led by a mayor did not meet Whitehall’s devolution criteria.

 

After the snub, West Yorkshire quickly followed as councils covering Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees and Calderdale combined behind a new elected mayor. Last year York and North Yorkshire also joined forces to elect their first joint mayor in a separate devolution deal.

 

The delay in Hull and East Yorkshire’s own deal getting over the line was caused by another split. After the Yorkshire bid fell by the wayside, talks began over a suggested combined authority spanning the Humber estuary.

 

With two councils on the North Bank and two on the South Bank, the Humber concept was backed by the local business sector which already viewed the Humber region as having its own distinctive economic identity with the spectacular Humber Bridge providing a ready-made USP.

 

However politicians south of the estuary were reluctant to commit. Memories and, among some, ingrained jealousies of the former Humberside County Council abolished in 1996 were sufficient to convince them that an alliance with councils in Lincolnshire was a better option.

 

When James Brokenshire rejected a Yorkshire-wide devolution he called instead for a “more localist approach” to the issue. In doing so, he hit upon a conundrum. While devolution enthusiasts are keen to champion the wider strategic remit it brings in terms of decision-making on economic development, transport and planning issues, the priority of ordinary voters rarely stretches beyond their own immediate neighbourhood, village or town.

 

 

This disconnect has long been a source of tension in Hull and East Yorkshire. The city itself sits within a tightly-drawn administrative boundary on the banks of the Humber effectively circled by East Yorkshire. In some places, the boundary line runs through the middle of streets. The only visible differences are the coloured household rubbish bins collected on different days.

 

Historically, the city’s population has been in decline until relatively recently with people voting with their feet to move across the border to the more affluent suburbs. Typically, most work in Hull but live in East Yorkshire.

 

Thanks to the tight boundary, Hull doesn’t really have its own middle-class community as you might see in York or Leeds. As well as having an impact on the city’s council tax base, this means Hull regularly appears near the bottom of national league tables on health, education and crime making it even harder to attract inward investment and jobs.

 

As if to underline the point, when East Riding of Yorkshire Council held a referendum in 2014 among its own residents living nearest Hull on whether they supported any future extension city boundary 51,000 voted against with just 1,887 in favour. Significantly, the turnout was 75.2 per cent.

 

Ironically, a decade later, those same households are now facing an equally significant local government reorganisation on their doorstep without having had the opportunity to vote for or against in a referendum.

 

Instead, a joint consultation exercise featuring a multi-choice questionnaire sent to every home revealed remarkable public apathy about the prospect of a new combined authority led by a mayor co-existing with the two current councils.

 

With a combined electorate of well over 460,000, just under 6,000 replied. Of those, only just over a half said it would be a positive move.

Critics of the deal fear the new Hull and East Yorkshire mayor will struggle to make an impact in what is becoming an increasingly crowded field. As an already geographically isolated part of the country, it’s going to be an uphill task to compete against established city regions like Manchester and Liverpool featuring bigger clusters of councils.

Steered in a somewhat erratic and confusing manner by previous governments, English devolution has become a story with many loose threads. Some mayors have responsibility for the local police service, others don’t. Some have forged ahead taking bus services back into public control, others are light years away from it.

 

A recent report by the Institute for Government think-tank described English devolution as an “incomplete patchwork of mismatched deals”. It argued the powers and funding being devolved were inadequate for the job with the entire devolution agenda remaining vulnerable to shifting national policies.

City council leader Mike Ross has championed devolution for Hull. He said: “For too long our area has been left behind but now it’s time for us to reach our full potential. The creation of the combined authority unlocks vital empowerment and investment and I believe we have the talent and drive to make the most of what devolution brings.”

 

In the immediate future, it will bring guaranteed annual government funding worth just over £13m with new powers on transport, housing and skills. However, back on the Humber foreshore the famous bridge dominating the skyline underlines the problems political history and geography bring to the devolution table. 

 

The crossing is run by a separate public body which sits outside the new-look strategic combined authorities about to emerge on either side of the estuary. Instead of being a uniting focal point as a key strategic transport route, responsibility for it will rest elsewhere while yet another tier of bureaucracy is being assembled to ensure there is cross-Humber partnership working between the two mayors. You couldn’t make it up.

---