Government to create new mayors across the country - and abolish district councils https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/government-create-new-mayors-across-18612356

Plans will be set out in a "Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper", to be published in September

The aim is to create mayors in towns and rural counties as well as big cities

The September white paper "will provide a roadmap for establishing a series of new mayors within the next ten years - representing the greatest decentralisation of power in our modern history."

A little trivia on this story. The speech was delivered Wednesday and I read it on Wednesday night (while watching Parks and Recreation) ... thought it would make a good story to work on Thursday ...

On Thursday morning I went back to the website but the speech had mysteriously vanished. Spent much of the day trying to track it down. Asked MHCLG for a copy - eventually late Thursday afternoon they replied saying basically no, they wouldn't give it to me

I knew more or less what the speech said as I'd read it less than 24 hours earlier, but wanted the text so I could quote from it. Anyway, I finally got hold of a copy as you can see from the story

But why was it deleted from the website, and why was MHCLG unwilling to email me a copy? I can only guess but my guess is Simon Clarke said a little more than he was meant to at this stage