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What form should Hampshire devolution take?

A pan-Hampshire deal fails to align with economic geography.

Blog post published on 6 September 2023 by Yash Zodgekar

In July, the Government announced it would push ahead with plans for a “pan-Hampshire” devolution deal. This would unite the authorities in Hampshire County Council, Southampton, Portsmouth, and the Isle of Wight under one combined authority, illustrated in Figure 1. This authority would gain powers over transport, adult education, and infrastructure, and would likely be led by a mayor. However, it remains a question whether this represents the best outcome for the region. Leaders of Southampton, Portsmouth and Isle of Wight authorities oppose a pan-Hampshire deal and instead seek to pursue their own joint deal separate from the rest of the county.

Assessing the region’s labour markets indicates that a deal for the entirety of Hampshire would encompass too many local economies to facilitate effective policymaking. Additionally, creating a combined authority raises questions about what responsibilities the existing county and district councils would have. With these issues in mind, what form should devolution to Hampshire take?

Figure 1: Pan-Hampshire:

Note – Southampton and Portsmouth’s primary urban area boundaries have been used here

Recognising economic geography is essential

The key benefit of devolution is that it can align political boundaries with economic geography. Doing this empowers locally accountable mayors to deliver economic policy tailored to their area’s needs. This is more difficult in areas like Hampshire which contain not one but several local economies. Any Hampshire deal must be cognisant of this geography.

A pan-Hampshire deal fails to separate out local economies

A Hampshire-wide deal fails to address the fact that North Hampshire, comprising of the authorities Basingstoke and Deane, Hart and Rushmoor, operates as a separate local economy to the rest of Hampshire. Figure 2 shows 4 per cent of North Hampshire residents work in an authority in Mid-Hampshire, and less than 2 per cent work in Southampton, Portsmouth, or New Forest. In turn, North Hampshire provides little employment for the rest of Hampshire; the 6 per cent of Mid-Hampshire residents working in North Hampshire represents the highest share of any Hampshire region. Hence, North Hampshire is disconnected from the local economies below it.

Figure 2: commuting flows (%) between Hampshire regions

Source: Census 2011

Instead, North Hampshire points more strongly towards London. Figure 3 shows 14 per cent of its residents work within the Greater London Authority. Its commuter flows to authorities to its North are also stronger. 12 per cent of North Hampshire residents commute to Surrey Heath, Reading or West Berkshire. This is over double the number commuting to the rest of Hampshire.

Figure 3: Employment locations of North Hampshire residents:

Source: Census 2011

This means North Hampshire’s authorities should not be part of a Hampshire-wide deal. The point of devolution is to devolve powers to the geography that the local economy operates over: a pan-Hampshire deal encompasses too many authorities to do this. To gain devolved powers, North Hampshire could instead look to the authorities to their north, which they are more economically connected too.

South Hampshire should be one combined authority

Even without including North Hampshire, determining the correct boundaries for the rest of the county is complicated because, by some measures, Southampton and Portsmouth operate separately. Each city’s residents tend not to work in the other. Figure 2 shows 5 per cent of Portsmouth residents commute to Southampton and 6 per cent commute the other way. On the face of it, this indicates that governing these two cities under one mayor poses challenges.

Figure 4: the share of population working in Southampton or Portsmouth:

Source: Census 2011

Nevertheless, while Southampton and Portsmouth residents themselves do not commute to the other for work, Figure 4 demonstrates that the two cities draw commuters from the same hinterlands. Each city draws over 12 per cent of Winchester’s residents for work. Areas of Eastleigh, part of Greater Southampton, and Fareham, on the edge of Portsmouth’s urban area, see over 61 per cent of residents commute to the other city. Therefore, despite residents of the city cores not commuting to the other, the two cities do function congruently as part a single South Hampshire economy.

As a result, if Government wishes to set up a combined authority, it should pursue one deal for all South Hampshire, as per the boundaries drawn in Figure 1. This would group Southampton and Portsmouth cities together with New Forest and the authorities identified in Figure 2 as ‘Mid-Hampshire’. These borders ensure the resulting authority will govern a cohesive local economy; 86 per cent of the combined authority’s residents work within its borders.

There is a precedent for economic collaboration between these authorities which would help smooth the transition to a combined authority. The Solent local enterprise partnership (LEP) consists of all of Southampton and Portsmouth’s local authorities and New Forest, and until 2019 included parts of Winchester, Test Valley, and East Hampshire.

An additional question is whether the Isle of Wight should join a South Hampshire combined authority. The Isle of Wight is a self-contained local economy: 90 per cent of its residents work on the island and only 4 per cent work elsewhere in Hampshire. As a result, joining South Hampshire authorities in a mayoral authority is not a particularly significant lever to improve the island’s economy. Nonetheless, given its proximity, if local policymakers feel joining a larger devolution deal would be beneficial, joining South Hampshire is the most logical option.

Creating a combined authority should be done alongside unitarisation and merging authorities

Setting up a South Hampshire combined authority will require changes to current local government institutions to work effectively. Simply put, setting up a combined authority will require dissolving the county council and unitarising the current district authorities.

Centre for Cities has previously argued that triple-tier structures, with district councils, a county council and combined authority, struggle to govern effectively as responsibilities are too fragmented between different tiers. Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority provides a good example of this. While the combined authority is officially the area’s local transport authority, the county council retains power over highways and roads, producing its own policy strategies in areas like active travel. This duplication of powers facilitated political gridlock which delayed plans for a Cambridge-Cambourne bus route.

Retaining Hampshire County Council under a combined authority would mirror this kind of muddled three-tier system. For a combined authority to work effectively, the existing county council structure should be dismantled, and its powers transferred to its current district authorities, which would become unitary authorities.

Unitarising Hampshire’s district authorities will not be simple. This involves them taking on significant new responsibilities in areas such as social care, which will require expertise and additional spending. It will be easier for larger authorities such as Winchester to achieve the necessary economy of scale to deliver these new responsibilities than the region’s smaller district authorities, which surround Southampton and Portsmouth. To address this, Government should look to integrate the district councils in each city’s greater footprint into the city’s core unitary authority, such that Eastleigh and Southampton authorities would become one unitary authority, and Portsmouth, Havant, Fareham and Gosport would join to become another. These borders of these proposed unitary authorities are reflected in Figure 1.

For a case study of how merging authorities can be successful in an urban area, local policymakers can look nearby to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, which formed out of a merger of two unitaries and a district authority in 2019. The voluntary formation of North Yorkshire Council from eight district councils is another similar case.

If local politics means that it is not possible to unitarise the district authorities and integrate the authorities surrounding Southampton and Portsmouth into the cities, the Government should look to other local government reforms rather than push ahead with a combined authority. For example, forming two larger unitary authorities covering the area each city’s wider labour market spans, illustrated as the green areas in Figure 4, would better capture each city’s economic footprint within political boundaries.

What is clear is that a pan-Hampshire deal encompassing the whole county would combine too many local economies to reflect the geography of Hampshire’s local economies. If the government is committed to the combined authority model of devolution, the best feasible option is to pursue a single deal for all South Hampshire which separates it from the authorities to its north. However, policymakers must recognise this will only produce effective policymaking if the decision is taken to unitarise the region’s district authorities and combine its cities into larger unitaries.