Wednesday 11 July 2012

Liverpool's elected mayor - were we conned?

My colleague, and now leader of the Lib Dem group on the City Council, Cllr Richard Kemp, is calling on the Mayor of Liverpool to "come clean" about what was or wasn't promised around the whole issue of whether or not Liverpool should have an elected mayor. 

Richard will be raising this at a City Council meeting next week.

I am pasting below some info about what we think on the topic and what we are saying.


"Councillor Richard Kemp, Leader of the Lib Dem Group on Liverpool City Council is demanding that the Elected Mayor, Joe Anderson, publish the details of the deal he made with the Government when he decided to deny electors a referendum on whether the City should have an elected mayor.




Back in February 2012 the then Council Leader, Cllr Anderson announced that the City would get a £130m boost to its economy if it moved to an elected mayor. But, now it’s clear that other Cities who didn’t go for the mayoral model have received similar amounts of money, in Manchester’s case considerably more money for their citizens.



‘The Council sold the citizens of Liverpool’s right to vote for £130 million and now it seems we would have got more if we hadn’t got a mayor thrust on us’. Said Councillor Richard Kemp.



‘The whole saga has been cloaked in secrecy’. The Mayor has already failed in his pledge made in July 2010 to be open in all his dealings and publish the work which he undertakes with the City Region Cabinet’.



‘I’m now calling for an end to this whole sorry mess and challenging the Mayor to show the residents and his fellow councillors that he’s got nothing to hide’. "




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