LETTER: Devolution decision was made after reasoned debate

May I please comment on Derbyshire County Council's decision to challenge Chesterfield Borough Council's devolution decision in the courts.

By The Newsroom

Published 13th Apr 2016, 18:30 BST

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Devolution plans

To put it kindly, it is astonishing that one council, the county council, should decide to use public money to seek to overturn in the courts the unanimous decision of another independent, democratically elected, public body, the borough council, which is not responsible to or accountable to the county council.

However it is down to the wisdom of the Chesterfield Borough Councillors and senior officers that they have decided not to spend thousands of pounds of public funds in an unseemly legal battle, but rather to revisit the issue again at a second meeting.

I attended the borough council meeting at which the original decision was made and listened to a reasoned, thoughtful and mature debate about what would be in the best interests of the citizens of Chesterfield in the future. This is local democracy.

David Shaw

Newbold Road,  Chesterfield.