Former deputy prime minister, Lord Heseltine has told Conservative councillors he is ‘appalled' at the ‘hollowing-out of local government', and the localism agenda, including directly-elected mayors, is an attempt to rectify the issue.
As adviser to the Government, Lord Heseltine said he had told PM David Cameron directly-elected mayors were ‘not on the scale I would like to see', but commented on provisions in the Localism Bill to ‘go faster', and accepted the pace of change.
