West Midlands Combined Authority: Will council identities survive?

Birmingham City Council is one of the largest local authorities in Europe

The West Midlands 'super council' is taking shape and by spring will have its first elected mayor. Seven councils have signed up for more power and money from government to work together on region-wide issues like transport and housing. Will the identities of each authority survive the merger?

Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton councils joined the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) for a devolution deal worth £40m a year for the next 30 years.

"Individual councils will still deliver services and retain their identity but on the big decisions we will have the resources to work together," says the WMCA website.

Mick Freer from Halesowen got in touch through Your Questions to ask: "Will the proud independent identities of Birmingham and the Black Country survive their merger under the West Midlands Combined Authority?"

Dudley councillor David Sparks, formerly council leader and chairman of the Local Government Association, said local identities would be retained.

But he called for "vigilance" to ensure the soon-to-be elected figurehead did not "become the personality of Greater Birmingham."

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Fellow Dudley councillor and UKIP West Midlands MEP Bill Etheridge said regional identity will be taken away "over my dead body".

"No one is going to tell me I'm not Black Country," he said.

Analysis by Patrick Burns BBC West Midlands political editor

It's nearly two years since the late-lamented Labour Leader of Sandwell Council Darren Cooper announced the "historic agreement" between four Black Country councils and Birmingham to work together towards a combined authority.

It was like the Montagues and the Capulets staging a love-in.

Supporters of the devolution deal say local identities will not suffer because local councils will continue to run their services: the new authority's political and spending powers are devolved from Westminster not uploaded from local authorities.

But getting that message across to sceptical local audiences will test the politicians' powers of persuasion.

When one local council leader went on BBC WM to support the "devo deal", he was promptly accused by one outraged listener of "talking out of the back of his trousers".

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Shabana Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Ladywood, said the city's identity will not just survive but thrive.

"We have a key role to play in the economic growth and regeneration of the West Midlands which will also be a benefit to the city too."

Catherine Staite, director of the University of Birmingham's institute of local government studies, believes identity will remain unchanged as together they take on challenges "that no one council can tackle alone."

"Birmingham will still be Birmingham and life in Sandwell, Dudley, Wolverhampton and Coventry will carry on just as before," she said.

"However, if the WMCA is successful, people in all the different areas should start to be able to feel the benefits of devolution in the years to come."

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This story was inspired by this question sent in by Mick Freer: "Will the proud independent identities of Birmingham and the Black Country survive their merger under the West Midlands Combined Authority?"