HEALTH

Why mayors matter

Polling shows the public wants more local control over policy decisions, and directly-elected mayors give them the chance to put place over politics, says Paul Swinney.

Right now, campaign leaflets are landing on doormats ahead of the local and mayoral elections in May. Once this round of elections is over, half of England will live in places with a directly-elected mayor, thanks to new devolution agreements in the North East and East Midlands. This marks huge progress on devolution.

As recently as a decade ago, out of all the big cities, only London had a mayor. By this time next month, all nine of England's largest cities will have one. Has introducing this extra layer of politicians helped produce better policy for urban areas? We conducted polling with Focaldata to find out.

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