YORK’S council leader has said he will take a “pragmatic” approach to getting the best devolution deal for the city – amid concerns about how much power a new mayor could wield.

Councillor Keith Aspden also said he would only be prepared to accept a deal “as good as or even better” than those that have already been struck in areas such as Manchester and West Yorkshire.

The government’s recently published ‘levelling up’ white paper confirmed that negotiations with councils in York and North Yorkshire are set to formally begin to develop a devolution proposal.

The two authorities have already asked for a £64 million ‘York Place Fund’, which would go towards major infrastructure projects in the city, as part of any deal.

Cllr Aspden and North Yorkshire County Council leader Carl Les will meet government officials in the coming months to hammer out a package for the region.

The right devolution deal could be “transformational” for the region, Cllr Aspden said, with tens of millions of pounds flowing into the city and “concrete improvements”.

He said in a briefing on Wednesday: “It could see the transfer of powers and funding from Westminster to the region alongside significant amounts of funding that could really deliver wide-ranging benefits to our local communities.”

Critics of the levelling up strategy point out that funding to local authorities has been gutted as a result of austerity measures, and Cllr Aspden stressed that devolution would not be a quick fix for areas like transport and housing.

The government has said that to unlock the best deals, local areas will have to consider having an elected mayor as part of a Mayoral Combined Authority.

North Yorkshire dwarfs York in terms of scale and population, and a combined authority comprising both areas would likely be Conservative-led.

Cllr Aspden said: “What I want is those powers transferred from Whitehall to our region and the additional funding for things like skills, transport and culture, that not just now, but in the long term would then make a real difference to the city. Government has made it absolutely clear that the way to get the best deal in terms of funding and power is to look at a Mayoral Combined Authority. And in that sense, I am pragmatically approaching it in terms of getting the best deal for York and North Yorkshire. I think that it would be letting down residents and businesses to not even look at that opportunity and see what it might mean.”

Plans for an East Yorkshire elected mayor were last week rejected by the leaders of the county’s two local authorities. East Yorkshire and Hull’s councils have said they instead want a combined authority chaired by one of the council bosses on a rotating basis.

The mayoral system was “not perfect”, Cllr Aspden said.

He added: “I think it’s fair to say that as a Liberal Democrat we have concerns about so much individual power being in the hands of one person without proper safeguards and scrutiny."

“It’s absolutely vital that we get those checks and balances on the mayor and on the Combined Authority and scrutiny in place across York and North Yorkshire to make sure that we do retain the right decisions for York.”

Residents and businesses would only accept a new layer of governance if it promised tangible benefits, Cllr Aspden said.

He added: “The overriding point I would make is this has to be about bringing new powers and new funding down from Westminster. It’s not about changing what the existing councils do.”

Helen Simpson OBE, Chair of the York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership, said that York and North Yorkshire were now “at the front of the queue” for a new deal.

“It’s for us to make the best we can of it for the city of the region,” she added.

Devolved funding and powers would give the area the tools to improve the life chances of people particularly on the coast and around Selby, Ms Simpson added.