ELECTION of a South Yorkshire Mayor should be delayed until 2020, Barnsley Council will tell the government following the seismic results of the devolution polls in Barnsley and Doncaster yesterday.
Sir Steve Houghton, leader of Barnsley Council, said he was very pleased with the outcome of the vote, which was announced on Thursday afternoon.
“What we wanted out of this process was a clear mandate from the public to set the direction for the council, and we’ve got that,” he said.
“The will of the people is for a Wider Yorkshire deal and we’re now going to work to make that happen.
“We’ll be writing to the minister in the next few days and we’ll be calling for him to delay the election of a Sheffield City Region Mayor until 2020 as it’s clearly against the public’s wishes, and it would be an unnecessary expense.
“That will give us time to sort out a Wider Yorkshire deal, and for those councils that want to be part of the Sheffield City Region deal - essentially Sheffield and Rotherham - to sort out their own arrangements.
“We’ll also be asking him to begin negotiations with the other councils across Yorkshire for a Wider Yorkshire deal.”
He said there could be a potential compromise in an interim Sheffield City Region deal under an interim mayor, but only if there was a cast iron guarantee that it would not prevent or delay Barnsley joining a Wider Yorkshire deal.
“We won’t sign up to anything that’s going to get in the way of that,” he said.
“What we would be prepared to do, as they did in Greater Manchester a few years ago, is look at a deal in Sheffield City Region which would not bind us to Sheffield City Region, but would allow investment to flow into South Yorkshire earlier than 2020.”
He said if Barnsley was to sign up to an interim South Yorkshire arrangement, it would only last until a Wider Yorkshire deal began. “We wouldn’t be in both,” he said.
He said he was pleased with the turnout, which was larger than in last week’s Rockingham ward by-election and other by-elections, and higher than at both Police and Crime Commissioner elections.
And he said the huge margin was a ‘vindication’ of what he and colleagues, including MPs Stephanie Peacock and Dan Jarvis, had been saying.
Doncaster also voted to back the Wider Yorkshire option.
“We’re still cautious. We still know the government is reluctant to go down this route. But what is clear now is that the agenda for Barnsley and Doncaster has now been set.”
A massive 84.9 per cent of voters backed Wider Yorkshire compared to just 15.1 per cent voting for Sheffield City Region.
Sir Steve said he was pleased the margin was so convincing: “This is not Brexit, it’s not 51 per cent to 49 with everyone arguing - this is unequivocal,” he said.
Turnout was 22.4 per cent.
Barnsley had been due to join the Sheffield deal under a South Yorkshire Mayor - still due to be elected in May - which would bring £30m a year over the next 30 years.
But earlier this year Barnsley Council said it wanted to explore the options of a bigger, One Yorkshire devolution deal instead after smaller councils in Derbyshire pulled out of the Sheffield City Region deal.
The council sent ballot papers to all 179,618 registered voters in Barnsley to gauge the public’s view, and polls closed on Wednesday.
In total 40,280 cast their votes, with 32,968 doing so by post and 7,312 choosing to vote online.
Wider Yorkshire was the clear winner with 34,015 votes to Sheffield City Region’s 6,064.
