Devolution opportunities and involvement in running city tops Local London wish-list

Local London is calling on the capital’s mayoral candidates to support growth in this sub-region.

Cllr Darren Rodwell, Chairman of Local London, has written to several mayoral candidates with our City Hall wish-list.

Our asks are:

We want devolution opportunities

Sub-regional partnerships like Local London have a strong track record of delivering wide-ranging programmes of services worth millions of pounds. While these have been allocated to us following bidding activity and not directly devolved from Government or the GLA, we have shown we are capable. We would welcome the opportunity to do more.

We want more involvement in running the Capital

London’s potential is constrained by its leadership and governance model. The Mayor’s strategic leadership role and the operational engine rooms of our city’s 33 boroughs are poorly assimilated around London’s key priorities. The four sub-regional partnerships – which are ideally positioned to collaborate on strategic issues like combined authorities in England – are underdeveloped and underutilised. The Mayoral elections in 2020 provide a perfect moment to take stock of the current arrangements and get London prepared for the future. We would welcome greater involvement.

We want a £1 billion funding deal to replace lost EU monies

Funding from the European Union will dry up in 2021. As one of the UK’s seven most deprived regions, the Local London region would have qualified for around £1 billion in cohesion funding in 2021-7 if the UK had retained its EU membership. This money would have supported growth projects throughout our sub-region and would have made a substantial difference. The Government will be consulting shortly on a UK Shared Prosperity Fund – which will replace all EU funding streams. We will be campaigning to ensure our sub region benefits from any new funding arrangement. We would welcome support in amplifying our case to Government for replacement funding and devolution to Local London of that funding.

We need better infrastructure to support our growth

Our residents are prevented from getting access to many of London’s opportunities because of poor infrastructure; especially cross-river connectivity. We would welcome the opportunity to work on a plan for transport and other infrastructural improvements specifically in the Local London sub-region.

Local London has invited mayoral candidates to meet with our leaders and chief executives to hear more about our needs.