The North East Combined Authority (NECA), officially the "Durham, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland Combined Authority", was a non-mayoral combined authority in North East England. From 2014 to 2024, it consisted of the Sunderland, Gateshead, South Tyneside, and County Durham local authorities. From 2014 to 2018, it also consisted of Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, and Northumberland local authorities.
NECA was established in 2014 by statutory instrument under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. It had some powers over economic development and regeneration.
It was announced in October 2015 that NECA would receive an enhanced devolution settlement and elect a mayor in 2017. These plans were later cancelled by the Communities and Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid on 8 September 2016 after Durham, Gateshead, South Tyneside, and Sunderland Councils withdrew their support.
The councils supportive of a mayoral deal (Newcastle, North Tyneside, and Northumberland) withdrew from NECA as a result and formed the North of Tyne Combined Authority which would have a directly elected mayor. For transport policy, the members of both combined authorities continued with a North East Joint Transport Committee.
In May 2024, NECA and North of Tyne Combined Authority were both abolished and replaced with the larger North East Mayoral Combined Authority, effectively reverting to the geographic area of the pre-2018 NECA.
History In order to create a combined authority, the local authorities in the proposed area must undertake a governance review and produce a scheme of their proposals.
At the first meeting of NECA on 15 April 2014, Simon Henig, the Leader of Durham County Council, was elected as chair.
Upon formation, the functions, property, rights and liabilities of the former Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority were inherited by NECA, forming an executive body within the new authority as the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive.
Naming The order which established NECA referred to it as the Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland Combined Authority, simply listing the names of the constituent councils in alphabetical order. The initial consultation used the name Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear Combined Authority. The body uses the name NECA. The legal name of the authority was changed to Durham, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland Combined Authority in November 2018.
Local government
NECA consisted of the following authorities ( population estimates):
Authority Type Population Area (km2) Pop. density (per km2)Gateshead Metropolitan borough South Tyneside Metropolitan borough Sunderland Metropolitan borough Durham Unitary authority
References
External links
North East Local Enterprise Partnership Background from Gateshead Council