THE people of Bradford seem split on the idea of having a London-style elected mayor for West Yorkshire and beyond.

Chancellor George Osborne has made it clear that any so-called 'city regions' wanting to secure major new powers would also have to have an elected mayor to oversee them.

This idea has been put to the public of Bradford by Councillor David Green, leader of Labour-run Bradford Council.

A consultation he has been running is coming to a close, and so far, he said, people seemed to "fairly evenly split" about the idea of a mayor.

He said: "Of those in favour of it, it was basically a case of, 'If we are going to get more powers, we are not particularly huge fans of the mayoral model, but if the deal is right, do it'.

"The others came back and said, 'We can't have all that power in the hands of one person, and basically all politicians are incompetent idiots, so we don't want just one incompetent idiot'.

"We have had a couple of brief chats with some of the businesses. They want devolution. They recognised that we can do more at a local level than at a national level and they are, I would say, neutral on the governance issue.

"I suppose it could be summed up as saying, 'If the deal's right, do it, and if that involves a mayor, so be it'."

Cllr Green and his colleagues on the West Yorkshire Combined Authority had been resisting Mr Osborne's calls for a 'metro mayor', especially as Bradford as a district rejected the idea of its own elected mayor in a referendum in 2012.

But the Conservatives' win at the General Election left this as the only deal in town.

Bradford Council's Conservative group leader, Councillor Simon Cooke, said the idea of an elected mayor had real merit.

He said such a figure, backed by a wider team of politicians, could help to streamline a system that was in danger of getting too bureaucratic.

Cllr Cooke said there were already quite a few West Yorkshire-wide bodies that were not accountable enough to the public - even before yet more powers were handed down.

He said: "There's already an enormous amount of bureaucracy at that tier.

"The problem is none of it is really accountable to anybody, which is why a lot of council leaders love it, because they can make big, important decisions and not-so-important decisions."

Cllr Cooke said adding an elected mayor was "not creating a new tier of government, it's making the existing system accountable".

But he said the Conservatives did not like the model being used in Greater Manchester's devolution deal, in which the new 'metro mayor' is to sit on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, saying this was "still a bit opaque and undemocratic".

Instead, he said, the mayor could have an assembly of elected councillors.

DEVOLUTION SERIES

He said: "We should be prepared to accept a few more politicians to keep check on that existing bureaucracy.

"If you add up the cost of having a police and crime commissioner, a police and crime panel, a fire authority, a combined authority, trading standards and joint services, the cost of the politicians on them, I suspect we've not got a lot of change out of a million quid.

"A mayor and 20-odd elected assembly members isn't necessarily going to cost us any more money."

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said any body wielding new powers had to be accountable to the electorate.

But she said the Liberal Democrats had wanted to see not a mayor but a Scottish Parliament-style regional assembly for the whole of Yorkshire.

She said people said Yorkshire was too big for its own assembly, but pointed out that it worked well for Scotland.

She said: "We could do with a Nicola Sturgeon. What we are going to end up with is a Boris Johnson."

MAYOR MAY NOT BE 'LARGER THAN LIFE'

THE role of Mayor of London has so far attracted two larger-than-life characters in 'Red Ken' Livingstone and Boris Johnson.

But should a new metro mayor for our region be a similarly colourful character?

Councillor David Green, Labour leader of Bradford Council, said it depended how people saw the role of mayor.

He said: "If you want them to be basically the figurehead of a marketing campaign, that's important."

On the other hand, if they wanted a "grafter", it was less important, he said, before adding: "I'm not saying Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson aren't grafters."

Cllr Green said there was a danger that if there was a "figurehead going around waving a flag", it would leave administrators doing all the work.

This could create "as bureaucratic a structure as we have got now with national government, and civil servants all over it", he warned.

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said: "There's no doubt, whether you think Boris Johnson is a fool or not, he personally will attract investment. That's the sort of model that the Government wants.

"We need a person who can bring together lots of different sorts of people in order to drive investment to our region."

Councillor Simon Cooke, leader of the Conservative group, said if the metro mayor role covered a large section of Yorkshire, it would attract the same kind of big personalities as the Mayor of London position had seen.

He added: "It would give Yorkshire a lot more oomph than it has got at the moment."