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Information About

South West Regional Assembly
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ORGANISATION

The assembly is not a directly elected body but is made up of 119 mostly elected members, of which:

  • 79 come from the 51 Unitary, County and District Authorities in the South West

  • 2 represent the National Parks Authorities in the region.

  • 2 come from the Association of Local Councils.

  • 36 represent the region’s Social, Economic and Environmental Partners (SEEPs). The SEEPs are drawn from a range of sectors including businesses, the voluntary sector, education and training, environmental bodies, faith communities, trades unions, tourism, health, agriculture, Racial Equality Councils, co-operative agencies, Learning and Skills Councils, Business Links and Culture.


Membership is reviewed by local authorities every year, and changes reflect political proportionality across the region after local elections. The SEEP representatives are nominated by regional Groups and these are reviewed at least every four years, so the Membership is fairly fluid.


ROLE

The main functions performed by the SWRA include:

  • Channelling regional opinions to the business-led Regional Development Agency ,

  • Carrying out advocacy and consultancy roles with national government bodies and the European Union ,

  • The Assembly is the Regional Planning Body with a duty to formulate a Regional Spatial Strategy ,

  • The Assembly is also the Regional Housing Body responsible for producing the Regional Housing Strategy (RHS) .



OPPOSITION TO SWRA

There was much opposition to the formation of the South West Regional Assembly with critics saying it is an unelected unrepresentative and unaccountable "quango", and the area covered is an artificially imposed region and not natural. This opinion is based upon geography, arguing that having the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in the same region as Gloucestershire would be comparable as linking London with Yorkshire. The feeling is especially strong in Cornwall where in July 2000 Mebyon Kernow issued the "Declaration for a Cornish Assembly ".


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