Next week my Cabinet will meet to consider the results of the public consultations on our plans for devolution for Devon and Torbay.

During February and March we held 31 meetings, we saw over 700 people and we received almost 900 responses from members of the public as well as our proposed partners in health, housing, education, business and district and parish councils.

Many of the responses were supportive and, interestingly, many of the negative comments were not against devolution but about aspects of how we propose to deliver it. 

As I've written here before, we are going to concentrate on measures to ease our county's housing crisis, boost our economy with new jobs,  raise the skills of our workforce and deliver a Green agenda.

I firmly believe making decisions locally on issues that matter most to local people is a game-changer for the people of Devon and will open up many more opportunities to improve public services and work closely with Government. How we operate across our existing local government structure, and with our partners, is the key to how this will work.

And it’s clear that, whatever happens after the General Election, devolution is here to stay. Obviously this Government has demonstrated its commitment to our plans but the Labour Party’s proposed Take Back Control Act features a presumption towards devolution.

I will therefore be recommending my Cabinet to agree the deal and I am hopeful that Torbay Council will do the same. We'll be taking account of some of the points that have been raised in the consultation such as exactly how devolution is being financed, how the arrangements for housing will work in practice and how we will work with Plymouth which decided not to be part of the process.

And, although the Government’s regulations mean that it will be Devon and Torbay that set up a new combined authority to oversee devolution, it is critical that the eight district councils have a voice and the ability to influence its work.

So now we've got to make a final business case to the Government and, all being well, we will be ready to go in the autumn.

Before that though, we have had some excellent news. As part of the announcement of the devolution deal, the Government promised a £16 million one-off capital investment.

They've now confirmed to us that this is not contingent on devolution going ahead but that Devon and Torbay now have the cash to spend on schemes which are expected to deliver Green jobs, Green skills, new low-cost, low carbon homes in deprived and isolated communities and Net Zero carbon savings.

There's a tight timescale on this so we are already working with our district council partners to look at schemes for housing, business support and Green skills.

For example, we want to support small sites that will provide Green homes with an opportunity to fast-track the development of  high quality eco-homes. This could include helping Community Land Trusts to deliver more affordable homes in rural and coastal areas.

We're hoping to support businesses which are transitioning to Greener practices and give them an opportunity to modernise and decarbonise at a faster rate than they had planned.

And there's a real opportunity to develop and fast track green skills capacity across our further education and higher education sectors and business partners.

So we're already working with our local council partners, key business organisations, training providers and other organisations and agencies  to identify "shovel-ready" schemes that need finance or other projects that could benefit from some pump-priming.

All in all I believe this is very positive news.