THE elected mayor of Copeland will appear on BBC's Sunday Politics Show this weekend to set out his vision for the future of local government in Cumbria.

Mike Starkie intends to discuss proposals for an elected mayor of Cumbria presiding over a new combined authority.

The move would see the scrapping of the top tier county council and the creation of a new cabinet made up of the leaders of each of Cumbria’s district authorities – Copeland, Eden, Allerdale, Carlisle, Barrow and South Lakeland.

Mr Starkie said: “The big mistake was walking away from the devolution deal offered by the Government in 2016 that would have seen Cumbria leading the way in Local Government Reform like Manchester, Liverpool and West Midlands and given us an elected mayor for Cumbria and a seat at the top table as well as a point of accountability to the community we represent.”

Mr Starkie believes the creation of a combined authority would help avoid “areas of duplication” on issues including planning, economic growth and waste enforcement.

The new combined authority would take over health and social care and transport from the top tier authority.

He added: “I believe over time within this structure we would see individual districts working closer together sharing more services and not competing in a shallow pool for recruitment but working collectively and evolving towards three Unitary authorities possibly even two over time saving millions as we go and avoiding the car crash disruption of forcing districts into a single Unitary that no one wants and that won’t work and disrupting the services we provide.”

At present the plans do not enjoy the backing of the district councils, but the mayor hopes a referendum would show there is popular support for the idea.