Ken Livingstone wants to scrap all 32 London boroughs and the City Corporation and replace them with five “super-districts” around the capital.
The London mayor claims that the change could make services more efficient and attract a higher calibre of councillors and officers.
But it will provoke fury in London’s town halls and set back the mayor’s already-strained relations with councils.
Critics warned that it would mean decisions affecting local neighbourhoods being taken up to 10 miles away.
Under Livingstone’s plans, London would be cut into five slices representing patterns of commuting and shopping.
Each authority would have a population of more than 1m, making it bigger than Birmingham, Britain’s largest local authority.
Traditional borough names would vanish and new ones would have to be dreamed up, or the five districts could simply be named after compass points – North-West, North Central, North-East, South-West and South-East.
Livingstone floated the plan at a Labour Party conference fringe meeting at Bournemouth.
He said of his of five proposed authorities: “Each would be a little bigger than Birmingham. They would be able to mobilise resources to tackle problems. They could attract a better quality of councillors and officers.”
The proposal came under immediate attack from the mayor’s hosts. Toby Harris, Labour leader on the London Assembly, said he was “horrified”.
Nicky Gavron, Labour candidate for mayor in the June 2004 election, said that while planning and education might be better run across larger areas, other services should be provided at a more local level. She said: “I would like to see more democracy, not less.”
Livingstone has no power to scrap boroughs, as such a change would require an act of parliament.
But his proposal will be examined seriously in Whitehall, after a report from Tony Blair’s Strategy Unit this year signalled government unhappiness with the capital’s councils.
The London Assembly is carrying out an investigation into how the local government map could be redrawn. It was last changed in the 1960s, when a number of smaller councils were amalgamated to create today’s boroughs.
Livingstone is visiting all three party conferences to promote the congestion charge and London’s Olympic bid.
Meanwhile, Gavron used conference fringe events to propose a Housing for London body to fund the building of low-cost homes in the capital.
References: EGi News 30/09/03
