South West Regional Assembly and South West Regional Development Agency
On Tuesday 17 July 2007, Local Government Minister John Healey MP announced Government plans to abolish regional assemblies. Functions of regional assemblies were planned to pass to Regional Development Agencies in 2010. The South West Regional Assembly was due to be replaced by the South West Regional Development Agency in 2010. There was opposition to the formation of the South West Regional Assembly with critics saying it is an unelected, unrepresentative and unaccountable "quango", and the area covered is an artificially imposed region and not natural. This opinion is based upon geography, arguing that having the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in the same region as Gloucestershire would be comparable as linking London with Yorkshire. The feeling was especially strong in Cornwall where in July 2000 Mebyon Kernow issued the "Declaration for a Cornish Assembly". In Oct 2007 Lib Dem MP Andrew George stated in a press release, "Just because the Government has approached the whole Regional Devolution agenda in entirely the wrong way, does not mean to say that the project itself should be ditched. If Scotland and London are benefiting from devolution then Cornwall should learn from this and increase the intensity of its own campaign for devolution to a Cornish Assembly."
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Cornwall
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