Devolution: Attempts to agree plans fail to reach agreement - but Luton still wants to join up with Bedfordshire and MK
Initial attempts to agree devolution plans for Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) failed to reach a consensus, a meeting heard.
But the BLMK model remains Luton Borough Council’s preferred option, its executive was told.
The local authority wants to ensure any future devolution deal has the correct economic geography for the benefit of Luton’s economy and residents, according to a report to the committee.
“An English Devolution White Paper (December 2024) laid out the government’s proposals for full coverage of devolved strategic authorities across England, and invited areas to apply for the priority programme in January 2025,” explained the report.
“Aspects of this report cover the devolution process, the make-up of mayoral and strategic authority offices, the BMLK proposal, its areas of interest and its footprint, and how this fulfils the government’s tests for strategic authorities.
“A second paper contains analysis of the BLMK economic footprint and how it fulfils the government’s criteria as an economic rather than political exercise, while a third document from Metro Dynamics outlines the economic opportunity a BLMK devolution deal could create.”
Labour Lewsey councillor Hazel Simmons said: “To aid decision-making and to respond to the government with an expression of interest, we commissioned economic analysis of BLMK area in January 2025.
“Luton and Milton Keynes sent a joint advisory note proposing a BLMK strategic authority. This proposition wasn’t accepted on to the government programme, having failed to reach consensus across the four local authorities.
“Around the same time, North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council proposed a South Midlands strategic authority. This also didn’t progress.
“The government held a consultation process on creating spacial development strategies. This identified the BLMK footprint as its preferred geography for spacial planning.
“The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is currently welcoming expressions of interest in forming foundation authorities, but won’t be making any formal decisions right away.
“The leaders of the four BLMK councils wrote to MHCLG in April stating their commitment to continue to work together across the region. Luton on behalf of these four authorities recently commissioned Metro Dynamics to do extra analysis and research on devolution, seeking to answer two key questions.
“These were ‘what are the risks of not agreeing a deal?’ and ‘what the compelling case for a devolution Bill is’. This work is ongoing and is due to be completed this month,” added councillor Simmons, who chairs the executive.
“We were supposed to be meeting with Baroness Taylor, that’s the respective leaders and chief executives, to get a consensus across the four local authorities. Unfortunately it clashed with the King’s Speech in Parliament, so this meeting will have to be rearranged at a later date.”
The executive agreed to support the BLMK economic geography footprint as LBC’s preferred model, in principle, for any future devolved foundation or strategic authority.
LBC’s corporate director inclusive economy is to report back with a fuller decision paper to the executive and the overview and scrutiny board, the committee also decided.
This would cover democratic accountability, finance, transition costs, scrutiny, climate and health tests, with a fallback option, if a regional political consensus across the footprint cannot be secured, said the report.