On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 18:27:12 +0000, BevanPrice
wrote:

On 22/01/2016 12:30, aurora wrote:


Then in 1965 came the ultimate land grab. Newly created Greater
London stretched from Chessington to Enfield. Middlesex ceased to
exist as a county authority. Most of remaining Middlesex became
Greater London, with small enclaves transferring to Surrey.

Are folks better off with these expensive monolithic structures? Let's
attribute good motives to the Whitehall instigators of this mishigas.
But, people are losing touch with their history, and who they really
are. This is not healthy.

Let's not ascribe good motives to the Whitehall crowd. They, along with
many "business" counterparts have decreed that "large is good", "small
is bad / inefficient, etc". Whether or not the people liked it (or
wanted it), in 1974, disparate towns were lumped together into invented
"boroughs" of some "ideal" size. Groups of boroughs were lumped together
into invented pseudo-counties, etc.

I subscribe to the "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately
explained by incompetence." school of thought. There is considerably
more of the latter.

Now, we have one part of a government proclaiming a need for local
decision making, whilst another half (Commissar Osborne) insists that we
must have city regions, or he won't let us "play with his toys" (i.e.
money)

What we really need is smaller units, in touch with local opinion,
supplemented by a mandate to cooperate with neighbours where that can
improve efficiency of some services. In the case of London, that could
mean that counties as far away as Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Suffolk,
etc., would remain independent, but have a mandate to cooperate on (and
support) rail services in "London Commuter land" - with some independent
panel to resolve arguments on funding, etc.

For once we are in agreement. Always better to have one's town hall
within walking distance, and chance meeting one's elected
representative out shopping, or whatever.