The Government has been accused of ‘shooting the messenger' over its plans to scrap regional assemblies. Local government minister, John Healey, announced last week that regional assemblies would be scrapped, and enhanced powers would be given to RDAs. But South East Regional Assembly chairman and Oxfordshire CC leader, Keith Mitchell, said the Government had ‘shot the messenger' to bypass council opposition to excessive growth in the region. ‘We have spoken out loudly about infrastructure and housing growth,' he told The MJ. ‘I think we have said it a bit too loudly, and a bit too well, and now the Government is hoping the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) will be a bit more pliable.' Cllr Mitchell said the assembly ‘has spent eight years successfully building consensus across councils and stakeholders to plan for a sustainable South East, but ministers are now passing that responsibility to an unelected quango.' He called on the Government to let local government leaders select half of the nominations on RDAs to ‘give us some confidence'. ‘Local government leaders also need to feed into the production of the regional strategy,' he added, West Sussex CC leader and chairman of the South East County Leaders group, Henry Smith, said transference of powers to the RDAs was a question of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire'. He added: ‘We were never in favour of the regional assembly. But what we are concerned about is that its powers will be taken away and given to an even more remote body. It seems that locally elected representatives will be even more at arms-length than they are now.'
