A Whitby councillor still wants to see more powers given to the town's council.
Neil Swannick says little has changed since North Yorkshire Council's new combined authority was formed.
He says that was a tough sell to Whitby residents back in 2022:
"They said to me, we've spent years who being dominated by Scarborough Borough Council, all we're going to do is swap Northallerton for Scarborough. And I said, no, no, no. Part of the package is going to be double devolution. We could potentially take on assets and services that are currently organised by somebody else and bring them down to a local level.
"So that people can have some say over the services that they're paying for. I have to say that that hasn't happened, has it? I went to the town clerk in Whitby and he said to me, well, I think that you've got to be fairly sort of careful about what you offer. We could end up taking on liabilities, which we wouldn't be able to cope with at the end.
"And so I said, no, we've got to be ambitious. We've got to look at how we can take this thing forward."
The town's Mayor, Sandra Turner, has said devolution wasn't working as planned, citing recent examples like the big wheel on West Cliff on which local decision-makers were not consulted. Liz Colling, speaking on behalf of North Yorkshire Council said there should have been consulted but that the county authority was working with over 400 parish councils in North Yorkshire.
Councillor Swannick says he spoke to senior councillors a few years ago:
"That was back in 2023. And I have to say that, for the record, and that seems to have been admitted by Councillor Dadd, is that the progress on double devolution hasn't been as good as it had been hoped for. So the question is how do we give it a little boost? And I think that this £100,000 is a fairly modest attempt to try and get the ball rolling in areas where there isn't the capacity. In my own area, I think we've got two and a half staff members who are having to run, council meetings, deal with correspondence, deal with FOIs (freedom of information requests), etc, all quite demanding and takes up all their time.
"How can they then sit down and start analysing the services that are delivered locally and make a case for adding that local knowledge to the equation?"
North Yorkshire Council rejected a proposal to allocate £100,000 per year to support town and parish councils in taking on additional responsibilities through "double devolution".
This initiative is separate from the broader £540 million York and North Yorkshire devolution deal.
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