City region (United Kingdom)

City region is a concept used by economists and urban planners to denote a metropolitan area and its hinterland, usually divided administratively but with shared resources and markets. It originated in a British policy context through Derek Senior's Memorandum of Dissent in the 1969 Redcliffe-Maud Report. Tightly defined areas around major cities became metropolitan counties in 1974, but the elected county governance was abolished in 1986 and replaced with indirectly elected structures such as passenger transport authorities.

In 2004 plans for Regional Assemblies in England were rejected in a referendum by voters in North East England.

The concept of city regions and their development features heavily in The Northern Way, a collaborative development plan between the three northernmost English regional development agencies. Major cities started to collaborate through the Core Cities Group.

The New Local Government Network proposed the creation of city regions as part of on-going reform efforts, while a report released by the IPPR's Centre for Cities proposed the creation of four large city-regions based on Birmingham , Leeds, Liverpool and Greater Manchester.

A report submitted to the Welsh Assembly recommended the creation of two city regions in South Wales, the Swansea Bay City Region centred on Swansea (region population: 685,051), and the far larger Cardiff Capital Region centred on Cardiff (region population: 1,400,000).[1][2]

City regions are wider than urban areas used by the Office for National Statistics, but narrower than the regions defined by Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS).

City regions with directly elected mayors in England.

In July 2007, HM Treasury published its Review of sub-national economic development and regeneration, which stated that the government would allow those city regions that wished to work together to form a statutory framework for city regional activity, including powers over transport, skills, planning and economic development.[3]

In the April 2009 Budget, the government announced that Greater Manchester and Leeds would be the first two city regions with formal powers.[4] While this was later discontinued as a result of the May 2010 general election, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government did agree to the creation of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority in 2011. Several of the 'city deals' agreed between the Cabinet Office/Department for Communities and Local Government in 2012 included city regional working at their core, including new combined authorities.[5]

There are three stages to the development of a combined authority for a city region. Firstly a review must be undertaken to establish the likelihood that a combined authority would improve:

"...the exercise of statutory functions relating to transport in the area, the effectiveness and efficiency of transport in the area, the exercise of statutory functions relating to economic development and regeneration in the area, and economic conditions in the area."

— Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, Part 6[6]

On completion of the review the city region and hinterland authorities produce and publish a proposed scheme of the metropolitan combined authority to be created, including the area that will be covered, the constitution and functions. This will include details of membership of the authority, remuneration, and how meetings will be chaired and recorded. Following a period of consultation and subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the combined authority is formally created, and city region powers from central government by a statutory instrument.

Not every city region may be suitable, economically or geographically, for devolution and as such only a select few have been granted such ─ these are listed in the table below.

• Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016
• Combined authority
• Multi-area agreement
• Greater London Authority

• The Northern Way - City regions