Council leader seeks referendum on elected mayor

Councillor Stephen Atkinson is a critic of the mayoral model but says the people of Lancashire should decide

The leader of Lancashire County Council is to ask the government for permission to hold a referendum on an elected mayor and the scrapping of the county's local councils.

Reform UK's Stephen Atkinson, who is also chair of the county's combined authority, is scheduled to meet Local Government Minister Jim McMahon on Thursday.

Atkinson is calling for a "legally binding referendum", saying the views of the people of Lancashire "need to be listened to".

The government wants to scrap all 15 of Lancashire's councils and replace them with three or four larger unitary authorities, which would provide all services under an elected mayor.

The BBC has asked the department of local government and communities for a response.

McMahon had previously asked Lancashire local authorities to set out a shared vision for the county after the councils they control are abolished, but so far no consensus has been reached.

Last year, political leaders from Lancashire County Council, Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool councils signed a devolution deal with the government to create a Combined County Authority.

It has some powers devolved to it from the government, but not as many as areas with an elected mayor.

Lancashire currently does not have an elected mayor, and has a two tier system of local government

Atkinson has been a long standing critic of the mayoral model of government, but said: "Reform's position is that people need to be consulted, so it's not about personal thoughts and beliefs on these big issues that have a profound impact on Lancashire families, they really need to have their say."

He has already written to McMahon in a formal letter on this subject, but said he had not had a response so far.

'Widest consultation'

If the government was to allow a referendum to go ahead, Atkinson estimated it could cost about £2.5m to hold the poll.

He said: "We can only really do that if the government is going to listen to the result of it."

If the government said no to holding a referendum, Atkinson said the council would have to have the "widest consultation possible".

"There's 1.5 million people and we've really got to reach into all areas of the population to make sure people's views are listened to," he said.

Atkinson was made chair of the combined authority at the first meeting since Reform UK won control of Lancashire County Council from the Conservatives in May's local election.