Yes or No ?

For me - no. The last thing we need is more levels of costly beuracracy. Whilst plans are still being developed/explained it appears that for many it will replace county councils, so in fact decision makers will become fewer and move further away from the electrorate rather than closer.

Interested in opinions.....

Anyone in London feel its made a real difference ?

Deano

"The last thing we need is more levels of costly beuracracy"

Surely that is precisely what the government is after - that way they can blame problems with transport, education, housing etc. on the regions.

Old two jags (or is it three jags now) and company will be entirely blameless (just like Mr Byers ;) ) even though they will probably have an entire ship-load of new rules and regulations that the regious will have to abide by!!!

Bear in mind that bringing power closer to the people is exactly the opposite of what the EU seems to want - i think that this all sounds a bit fishy to me?

mb

One of my "fears" is that I'm sure the ultimate aim of some is to have a Europe which exists as a single collection of "regions". The word "country" will be banished. (like the P word ;)). But dont know if that is just me being paranoid.

I am all for it. Money will be split fairly between areas and then they get to decide what it gets spent on, not those in Westminster. I mean, what do they know about local issues in Bolton or anywhere else. I reckon initially there will be more red tape while things get sorted out but after a while, maybe a couple of months it should gradually ebb away.
Scotland Wales & N Ireland seem to have lapped it up.
There are over 600 MP's in the commons, they can't all get there local issues across.
One of the main problems with politics is voter apathy cos of the lack of local focus at the moment. I can't wait to see what the plans are.

Steve

Just my 2p

It depends on what it is. If they are to be equivalents to the Scottish assembly with the council structure left intact then they'll be nonsense (it hasn't worked in Scotland IMO, other than encouraging nationalistic tendencies).

If it removes councils and puts real accountable management teams in charge of local/ regional government services then could be interesting. I object to paying twice as much council tax in Glasgow as I did in Manchester for apparently worse services. We wouldn't be happy if we had to pay twice as much for gas or electric in different areas of the country so why should we pay such widely differing amounts for council tax? Regional government could remove the bureaucracy of the local councils (lets face it, what do they do other than run their own pointless little fiefdoms - could you name you local councillors?).

Gordo