Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority has privately produced a Local Growth Plan that is intended to guide regional development for the next decade before holding a brief public consultation on its contents with the minimum-possible publicity.
It says the plan has been “shaped by extensive engagement with stakeholders across the region” but when asked to explain when this engagement took place and identify who took part it would not.
It nevertheless insisted that the plan’s development had been “an open and collaborative process” and had been “by no means private”.
It then published a 150-word blog post on the 10,000 word plan on its website on 5 June with a link to an online feedback form that disappeared a fortnight later.
Combined county authority operations director Sean Anstee, formerly a Conservative Party politician, said the authority was “committed to ensuring that all voices are heard in this next phase of engagement”.
However we were unable to find any evidence of the consultation being promoted via any other channel. Even Devon County Council – which promoted a public consultation held last February on the devolution deal that led to the creation of the new authority – was silent on the matter.
Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority draft local growth plan infographic. Source: D&T CCA.
Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority, which came into force in February and held its inaugural meeting in March, is the foundation for the new south west regional strategic governance body that is being created as part of the government’s devolution plans.
Its 2025-26 operating budget provides for ten members of staff, including operations director Sean Anstee, at a cost of £500,000.
It commissioned Metro Dynamics, a London-based consultancy, to develop the new regional plan. Sean Anstee said the plan is “underpinned by a robust and comprehensive evidence base”. When asked to clarify where this evidence base had been published he said the plan “sources the key datasets that have informed its development”.
However the plan only cites fourteen sources, five of which are unpublished materials provided by the consultancy itself.
It rehearses well-worn themes from previous local authority-produced strategies, including structural challenges such as the region’s unaffordable housing, ageing population and chronic underinvestment in key sectors, but also has little of substance to say about how to address them.
It sets outs equally-familiar strategic priorities that include “fostering an entrepreneurial and networked business environment” and “strengthening the talent pipeline through housing, skills and careers support” while providing a “platform for engagement with central government, investors and national agencies, making the case for further devolution and investment in the region”.
But it has no answers for what happens when government looks elsewhere, as it just did in its 2025 spending review.
Despite delivering a place name-checking tour of the UK in her speech to parliament, chancellor Rachel Reeves had nothing to say about the south west peninsula, and the accompanying 136-page document doesn’t seem to see a world beyond Bristol either.
Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority’s board is expected to approve the ten-year plan at its 28 July meeting.
The meeting does not appear in Devon County County’s democratic services calendar, where its agenda will eventually be published, despite it taking place one month from now.
The board’s 29 May meeting, which received Sean Anstee’s report on the growth plan, was livestreamed on YouTube without any sound, so it was not possible to hear what was said.
Sean Anstee confirmed that he was aware of the technical failure five minutes into the meeting, but the meeting continued as scheduled.
The soundless video was then deleted and he subsequently confirmed that no audio recording of the proceedings had been made.
