Shadow communities secretary, Eric Pickles, has indicated growing Conservative support for sub-regions, city-regions and elected mayors. In a conference fringe event, hosted by Urban Hub, he backed wider co-operation between local authorities across economic areas. This reflects the party’s desire to scrap existing regional structures and return to something more like the metropolitan county councils the Conservative Government scrapped in 1986. ‘We want to see an end to the ridiculous nature of regional government,’ said Pickles. ‘We want to put government into the hands of people around real economic areas. We are looking for co-operation between local authorities – to share money, to share sovereignty, so that real substantial powers can be devolved to a mighty city like Birmingham.’ He also called for cities to be free to choose whether they wanted elected mayors, and suggested regional development agencies could be different in each region, with some surviving and others reducing to city-region areas. He promised an end to council tax capping too. Centre for Cities director, Dermot Finch, said the speech was the strongest endorsement of city-regions yet by anyone in the party, but that Pickles’ views were not widely shared by local Conservatives. He said councillors would prefer to do their own thing locally, and were uncomfortable with pooling funding and sovereignty. The party’s policy commission on localism, chaired by David Curry, is also likely to recommend city mayors and more devolution. But the possibility of an elected mayor for Tyne & Wear prompted Newcastle City Council leader, John Shipley, to say none of the region’s five local authorities would welcome this model, despite already working closely together. Sunderland’s Conservative group leader, Lee Martin, said he backed city regions, but believed Sunderland would miss out if it was linked to Newcastle.