The Chancellor confirmed last week that a deal had been agreed for Greater Lincolnshire, with a collaborative agreement in place stretching from the Humber to the Wash.

It’s already been greeted with accusations of bribery and blackmail from Caistor and Market Rasen MP Sir Edward Leigh.

But the Government was keen to push its credentials this week, with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) more than obliging when the Grimsby Telegraph asked for a chat on the topic.

Getting hold of press officers, never mind a Secretary of State, can be a problem normally, but not so when it came to the big D-word.

And I didn’t even have to call the Communities Secretary – he called me, from his mobile and everything.

Secretary Greg Clark stressed that there were “no downsides” to this devolution deal with no erosion of the current set-up – only more powers on top of it all.

The man in charge of George Osborne’s “devolution revolution” said he had been so impressed with Lincolnshire’s offer that he decided to bump the announcement up the waiting list.

But even he recognised the deal had a “uniqueness”, with the industrial engine of the Humber combined with what is principally a rural county – a combination not everyone believes sits naturally.

‘Huge moment’

The likes of Grimsby MP Melanie Onn and Scunthorpe MP Nic Dakin had pushed for a Humber Estuary devolution deal instead, linking the South Bank with Hull and the East Riding, but North East and North Lincolnshire leaders turned their attention south.

What is interesting about this yellowbelly formation, uniting a population of one million people, is what a vast area it combines.

Stamford in south Lincolnshire is almost as close to London as it is Grimsby, but yet now the two will be tied economically after Westminster handed the county control over a number of functions, including transport, infrastructure investment, health care and even prison services.

“This is a huge moment for Lincolnshire,” said Mr Clark, an advocate for devolution for more than a decade.

“It is the first deal we have done with a predominately rural area. It has got the important local authorities along the South Bank of the Humber and that is what makes it unique – that large rural area combined with an important industrial area.

“It deserves huge congratulations on beating many other areas who had prepared bids, as it managed to get to the head of the queue.”

The bumper £450 million devolution investment – a cash pot of £15 million annually for the next 30 years – will come on the proviso that all ten councils agree to the terms which includes an elected metro mayor for the region. Think Boris Johnson but with less panache.

Advocates for the deal say it could boost the area’s economy by £8 billion, provide 29,000 jobs and see 100,000 homes built.

Will it be enough money?

But the deal was not without its critics.

Ms Onn said, when broken down, the money equated to £15 per person every year and questioned whether it was enough to deliver the growth promised.

Infrastructure projects cost a great deal of money.

The transformation of the A160 at South Killingholme into a dual carriage superhighway comes with a £90 million price tag, and even the Immingham bypass, costing nearly £8 million, would have wiped out half the county’s new devolution budget for the year.

But yet, if the heavy infrastructure spending does have to come out of the devolution fund, that same cash pot would have to still stretch to pay for healthcare improvements, the upkeep of courts and the upgrading of flood defences, however.

The question is, will it manage to finance it all?

Mr Clark argued that the pot of cash allowed the “super authority” to be more inventive with the money.

“It allows them (the Lincolnshire councils) to leverage other money from investors,” he explained as he cut in and out of phone signal while he rode a train to his next meeting.

“This is money that wouldn’t have been available to the area. Without the deal, it simply wouldn’t be there. It can be used intelligently to encourage more investment in the area.”

Lincolnshire acted ‘shrewdly’

When the deal was announced, Conservative Cleethorpes MP Martin Vickers said it had been imperative North East Lincolnshire got in on the act sooner rather than later as the devolution packages on offer were getting “less generous” by the month. …”

Durham County Council’s cabinet on Wednesday decided to defer making a decision, following Gateshead Council’s decision on Tuesday to reject it.

The two authorities had previously signed up to the programme, which could unlock £3.4bn in job creation and skills training cash.

Both authorities have said they support “genuine devolution for the North East” – but councillors have argued that they don’t believe what is being offered matches up to that.

Durham County Council leader Simon Henig told councillors that fair funding for the region needed to be in place to make the deal work, adding that more time was needed to get the deal right.

Gateshead leader Mick Henry blamed the politicians in Westminster for the lack of a breakthrough.

He said: “Government needs to think again about how to address the issues of the North East and how they are going to be seriously and properly fair to us.

“I think it’s a real shame that they seem to want devolution to take place but aren’t prepared to be open minded.”

On Thursday, the leaders of the seven councils which make up the North East Combined Authority will meet to discuss the proposals.

They will in effect have four options – turn down the deal, agree the deal, agree the deal with conditions attached, or delay the deal.

The North East Liberal Democrats have called for the decision to be deferred to allow for further negotiations.

A spokesman said: “We recognise many of the concerns expressed about the current deal, including the requirement for an elected mayor, and the lack of say afforded to the public on this decision.

“We believe a decision should be deferred to allow for further negotiations with Government and we encourage NECA to explore this with a view to establishing whether a better deal with wider support is possible.

“We call for urgent cross-party discussions on how the devolution deal process can be taken forward with greater consensus.”

There was an almost unanimous vote of approval at Shire Hall yesterday for a motion that said the devolution proposal for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk “is not acceptable to this council” in its current form.

Councillors stopped short of killing the deal dead altogether, with an amendment by Cllr John Hipkin ensuring Cambridgeshire remains at the negotiating table with Whitehall.

But the bulk of councillors who spoke on the issue in more than two hours of debate left their fellow councillors in no uncertain terms that they were against the deal.

There was a general consensus across the chamber that devolution should be welcomed in principle – but the subject of a directly elected mayor across all three counties and 23 councils gained no support.

And this looks like being the key issue in the devolution debate, with UKIP leader Cllr Paul Bullen telling councillors yesterday that council leader Cllr Steve Count had informed group leaders the mayor aspect of the deal was non-negotiable.

Labour, Lib Dem and UKIP councillors in particular all suggested a devolution deal covering Cambridgeshire and Peterborough made more sense – with Cambridge City Council willing to share its considerable lump of business rates if a deal can be agreed across this geography, Labour leader Cllr Ashley Walsh said.

“This is a shotgun wedding and George Osborne hasn’t even had the decency to take us out to dinner beforehand,” Cllr Walsh added.

“You would have more chance of finding the Fenland tiger than someone who supports a regional mayor across East Anglia.”

Lib Dem councillor Lucy Nethsingha said the deal looked as if it had been “drawn up on the back of a cigar packet in the Treasury” and had “very little to offer Cambridgeshire”; Cllr John Williams said it was an “idiotic suggestion that you can have one person running the infrastructure for this area”, while Cllr David Jenkins said the council “should be selfish and look after the interests of Cambridgeshire” rather than partnering with Norfolk and Suffolk. …”

Lord Porter contacted councillors in Newcastle and Lincolnshire yesterday by email to ask if they could contact members in Cambridgeshire “from your respective groups” to see if they could get the debate put off until after Easter.

Lord Porter said: “I will endeavour to get Greg Clark to meet with all of them as soon as the Easter break is over to try to make sure that any questions they have can be answered before they make their decision”.

But Cllr Bullen is furious that Lord Porter has intervened and earlier today told him: “As far as I’m concerned it is not within your remit as chairman of the LGA to attempt to alter, in any way, shape or form, decisions already made by democratically elected councillors.

“All members are entitled to table motions and your deliberate attempt to sway the way any debate will go is political meddling of the worst kind.

“Clearly, and in my personal opinion, this is a politically motivated e-mail which is neither warranted nor wanted by the majority of members at Cambridgeshire County Council.

“Indeed, I doubt that you have even read the devolution deal on offer for, had you done so, you would have realised what a terrible deal it is for Cambridgeshire.”

He accused the Lincolnshire peer of an “obvious attempt to interfere in the democratic process at Cambridgeshire County Council”.

Cllr Bullen told Lord Porter: “I believe that you have acted ‘ultra vires’ by sending this e-mail in the first place and I will be making a formal complaint regarding your conduct.”

In his email Lord Porter said: “I think we all agree that the devo deals announced are a step in the right direction and that we all agree that the leading groups pulling the deals together need to make every effort to keep all of their council members on board.

“I’m sure we all agree that if members decide for good reason that the deal is not worth pursuing then this is a position we should support.

“In the case of the Cambs deal I’m not sure that anyone is yet in the position to make a decision either way and this brings me to the point of this email.”

Lord Porter added: “I think a decision to reject the offer, so soon after it has been made and in the absence of any real chance for all of the relevant information to have been shared, risks bringing the whole agenda into disrepute.”

Thirty four devolution proposals are being considered across England.

Lord Porter said last week: “To build desperately-needed homes, create jobs, provide the dignified care for our elderly and boost economic growth, all councils need greater freedom from central government to take decisions over vital services in their area.

“These new deals and extensions to existing deals must signal a return to the early momentum in which similar deals were announced last year. This will clearly require different approaches for different areas, including how they are governed.”

The chancellor used today’s Budget speech to confirm the widely speculated ‘Eastern Powerhouse’, with a directly elected mayor overseeing almost £1 billion of investment across Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

But the News can reveal that county councillors are set to become the third major player in the county to reject the Government’s devolution offer.

No party has overall control at Shire Hall, with Tory council leader Cllr Steve Count having only agreed to continue further discussions with Whitehall, after consultation with other group leaders.

And the leaders of Labour, the Lib Dems and UKIP have all announced they are set to reject the plans, and have demanded a special meeting of full council to discuss the proposals early in April.

And Labour leader Cllr Ashley Walsh said independent group leader Cllr John Hipkin was also minded to reject the ‘Eastern powerhouse’ deal – potentially giving an overall majority of councillors voting against the proposals.

It is also thought a similar alliance of opposition is being coordinated by the smaller parties on Peterborough City Council, while there were reports this morning of a ‘town hall backlash’ cross Norfolk and Suffolk over the plans, which would come with a directly elected mayor.

“‘George Osborne has managed to unite virtually everybody against these ridiculous devolution proposals,” said Cllr Walsh.

“The business community from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough local enterprise partnership to the chambers of commerce do not support the plans. The public are rightly sceptical of an expensive mayor with yet another layer of local government.

“The biggest problem in Cambridgeshire is how to deal with our county’s massive inequality. Cambridge needs to be allowed to grow to make the city affordable once again but the success of the south of the county needs to be shared equally with the impoverished north of the county.

“But the devolution proposals give us no guarantee that any of the small budget would be directed to making the county equal by giving it the housing, skills and infrastructure investment it actually needs. For the financial and democratic cost of a barmy system of a mayor and combined authority, the scraps currently being offered are just not worth it.

“These are shoddy proposals drawn up on the back of a fag packet. They have been rushed through in the space of about a month simply because George Osborne wanted something nice to announce in his sixth austerity budget.

“The government should go back to the drawing board and spend an appropriate amount of time building up support for a sensible and costed devolution package that will actually support the economic development of Greater Cambridge and East Anglia more generally. So far, they have totally failed.”

Lib Dem leader Cllr Nethsingha was similarly outspoken, telling the News: “The Liberal Democrat group on the council has made its opposition to the proposals for a new layer of government with an elected mayor very clear. We do not believe that these proposals have anything to offer Cambridgeshire.

“The amount of money being offered for infrastructure is tiny in comparison with that available through the City Deal.

“The governance proposals are disastrous and would lead to the people of Cambridgeshire having no control over the transport and planning decisions in their local area.

“We have seen from the public interest there has been in many of the City Deal proposals that the public want to be involved in decision making. This mayoral proposal would shut people out, and we cannot support that.”

UKIP group leader Cllr Paul Bullen agreed it was right that Cllr Count had agreed to bring these discussions in front of councillors.

But he added: “On the face of it at the moment myself and my group are not supportive of the devolution deal, because we don’t think it does anything for Cambridgeshire.

“But more importantly, from a UKIP point of view, we believe it’s more centralisation it actually puts not just one but two further layers of bureaucracy in.

“You’d have all the associated costs of running this cabinet, and then you’d have a directly elected mayor above that.

“It’s not localism – it’s centralisation as far as I’m concerned.”

On the county council currently there are 30 Conservative councillors and a total of 38 from other parties – 14 Lib Dems, 12 from UKIP, eight Labour and four independents.

Cambridge City Council and the business-led Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough local enterprise partnership have also rejected the deal.”