COUNTY Durham will decide whether to be part of North-East devolution on Wednesday, March 23, it was announced today (Wednesday, February 24).

Durham County Council’s Labour leader Simon Henig told a full council meeting at County Hall the decision would be taken by a special cabinet meeting on that day.

Councillor Henig faced criticism from Liberal Democrat leader Amanda Hopgood, who asked when the 106 Durham county councillors not in the ten-strong Labour cabinet would have their say on the political shake-up.

She called for today’s (Wednesday) full council to take an “advisory vote”, while her Lib Dem colleague Nigel Martin asked for an extraordinary full council meeting to be called to allow all councillors to express their views, saying it was “totally undemocratic” for Labour to decide the issue.

Cllr Henig said taking a vote today (Wednesday) would not be helpful as many details of the devolution package were yet to be agreed and calling another full council meeting would be “a lot of paraphernalia for one item”.

Instead, he offered to meet opposition councillors privately and hear their views at the March 23 cabinet meeting.

Chancellor George Osborne’s North-East devolution package offers powers over economic development and skills, transport, housing and planning and a £30m-a-year investment fund to a new North-East mayor to be elected in May 2017.

All seven councils involved, encompassing two million people across County Durham, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland, will decide whether to accept the offer in March, before the final decision is taken by the North East Combined Authority, which includes all seven.

In a ballot held across County Durham during January and early February, 59.9 per cent of the 81,964 respondents said devolving some power and resources to the North-East would be a step in the right direction.

Cllr Henig said this was the largest consultation on the current devolution proposals carried out anywhere in England and the views expressed would be taken into account.

But he said there were still “a lot of uncertainties”, including the funding settlement and whether the mayor would be able to impose taxes.

Independent councillor John Shuttleworth said the support of just 6.15 per cent of the electorate was “hardly a mandate to move forward”.