The change would've seen the abolition of all 14 of Kents councils, with the leader of KCC saying residents have been let down. Local Democracy Reporter, Gabriel Morris, has more.
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00:00The talk of County Hall for the last few months.
00:03Everyone thought the area would be amongst the first to go through devolution.
00:08Today's announcement means those sweeping changes won't happen so fast.
00:13What I understand is that this was to do with Kent and Midway being authorities of very different size
00:21and the question of how we could manage a mayoral authority under these circumstances.
00:27It's very hard to make much sense of that.
00:31What we have at the moment is an outcome that lets down, badly lets down our 1.9 million residents.
00:39Across Kent there are currently 14 councils, 12 districts, the County Council and Midway which sits alone.
00:48Devolution plans would see all those abolished replaced with three to four smaller authorities
00:54doing the jobs of both upper tier and lower tier councils with an elected mayor like that of Manchester or London
01:01sitting above calling for shots.
01:04Do you feel let down by Labour?
01:06I feel frustrated today by the system and yeah it is regrettable.
01:10Of course by the nature of having a process of this nature it means not everyone can be a priority place, I get that.
01:16We've been given very encouraging words, support by central government and civil servants who actively encouraged to apply for this process.
01:26We did that, we worked across party, across 14 councils so it is deeply disappointing with the decision we've got to today.
01:34Kent will be one of the only counties in the region not going forward with devolution.
01:39Essex and the Sussexes will now both be on the priority programme.
01:43Veteran MP Sir Roger Gale fears Kent councils could be left like a lame duck.
01:49I don't see any lame duck local authorities out there, I see local authorities of all political persuasions
01:55that are delivering vital public services that are felt absolutely pillared by the previous government
02:00and I see a government now determined to change that.
02:05For councils on the priority list elections postponed.
02:09Kent could have faced the same fate so today good news for those fiercely opposed.
02:15We think this is a really good day for democracy.
02:18We were really concerned that people were going to be making decisions over the long term future for Kent
02:24and people whose term of office would have effectively expired and therefore they would have had no democratic mandate to do so.
02:31So in a little less than three months time all 81 seats at KCC will be up for election.
02:38Most people, most councillors didn't expect that so it's going to be a busy three months for the parties.