City Region consultation unlawful, High Court rules

A consultation on whether to expand the Sheffield City Region to include the Chesterfield area has been ruled unlawful by the High Court.

The judicial review was brought by Derbyshire County Council, which objects to the inclusion of Chesterfield - which lies within its administrative area - being included in the Sheffield City Region.

Mr Justice Ouseley ruled that the consultation failed to ask local people a direct question about whether or not they believed Chesterfield should become part of the Sheffield City Region. The judge said that this made the consultation unlawful and unfair and said that Sheffield City Region had provided no reasonable justification as to why it had not included such an obvious and fundamental question in the questionnaire.

The judgment does not quash the Sheffield City Region’s devolution consultation but further consultation is required before it can be considered by the Secretary of State.

Sheffield City Region's consultation on whether it should expand its devolution deal to include Chesterfield ran from 1 July to 12 August 2016. If the expansion goes ahead, responsibility would pass to a Sheffield City Region Mayor and combined authority for key services in Chesterfield including major roads, funding for maintenance and road safety on all roads in the borough, public transport, travel concessions, skills for employment and major planning and investment projects.

Leader of Derbyshire County Council Councillor Anne Western described the outcome of the judicial review as "a victory for fairness and common sense."
"The people of Chesterfield knew this consultation was unfair and misleading and this High Court judgment confirms that,” she said. “When the county council asked the question Sheffield City Region failed to ask - whether Chesterfield should join Sheffield - more than 7,500 people responded to our online poll (opens in a new window) or filled in postcards in libraries and more than 92% opposed the plans.

"Taking action in the High Court was the last thing we wanted to do but unfortunately we were left with no other option to help us defend the right of local people to have their say on something so important.

A spokesperson for Sheffield City Region Combined Authority said: “This judgement confirms that our extensive and wide-ranging consultation will not be quashed. The judgement raised the need to carry out further consultation to address the proposed governance changes in Chesterfield. We will now take some time to consider the judgement and our next steps. We will make further public statements once we have had the opportunity to do this.”