Nearly 70% of people would like their community to have more control over how local services are delivered, a new poll has revealed.

Published by the Effective Governance Forum (EGF) - a new organisation campaigning for greater local control - the survey also found that six out of 10 would be more likely to vote in local elections if they felt their council could make more decisions about their area.

The EGF said the poll of more than 2,000 people, which was carried out by Savanta, supported the call in its new report for a 'huge shift of power from the UK's over-centralised, London-based administration to local government'.

Report co-author Tim Knox said: 'The Westminster and Whitehall machine is unable to fix the problems of Wythenshawe, Widnes and Winchester.

'It is a centralised system that avariciously hogs power and impersonally imposes solutions on distant communities, blind to their real needs.

‘Westminster must let the people who know best take control of their own destinies.'