Berkshire’s six local councils have appointed Saba Tahzib as Director of Devolution and Growth on a £130,000 salary. The total cost to recruit and establish the one-year fixed-term role reached £165,000 once recruitment agency fees were included, though local council taxpayers will not pay a penny: the entire sum was funded using interest generated by legacy Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership funds. Wokingham Borough Council led the recruitment process on behalf of all six Berkshire local authorities. The appointment fills the strategic post left open following an eight-month stint by Paul Patterson, who served as Berkshire’s director of devolution from September 2025 until April 2026.

Alongside the high-level appointment, the six authorities launched a dedicated central website—www.berkshireprosperity.co.uk—to publish decision logs, track regional development, and monitor joint funding, housing, and economic initiatives across the county. Rather than handing the project to commercial contractors, the digital setup was built in-house through West Berkshire Council for £5,085. The internal approach saved thousands of pounds after an external agency provided a £16,000 quote for the work. Annual ongoing support and maintenance for the new website will cost £2,775 per year.

By drawing on legacy enterprise funds and internal technology teams, Berkshire’s authorities have quietly established the working administrative framework for joint governance without burdening local budgets. The new director and online hub serve as the operational core of the Berkshire Prosperity Board, giving Reading and its five neighbouring councils a shared mechanism to target funding, coordinate policy, and steer regional investment across administrative boundaries.

The Berkshire Prosperity Board took shape in June 2024, stepping in as a formal Joint Committee to handle economic policy across the county after national economic reforms phased out the Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). Formed under Sections 101 and 102 of the Local Government Act 1972, this statutory model allows all six Berkshire unitary councils to delegate functions jointly and pool decision-making powers. It provides a formal mechanism for shared governance and creates a unified regional voice on key growth issues without requiring any individual council to cede its own statutory independence or local control.

Six months after its creation, the joint committee formally submitted its guiding strategy, the ten-year Berkshire Economic Strategy 2025–2035, to HM Government in December 2024. To turn that overarching vision into operational progress on the ground, the board structured its operational focus around six clear thematic workstreams: health and inequalities, skills and education, affordable housing, sector development, strategic infrastructure, and net zero. Rather than attempting to merge everyday municipal services, this joint framework targets strategic cross-boundary priorities where working as a unified block gives Berkshire far greater reach and leverage.

Financing the administrative engine required to drive these six workstreams has been achieved without dipping into local authority budgets or asking taxpayers for fresh contributions. For the 2026/27 financial year, remaining reallocated project funds totalling over £356,000 were made available to resource the Prosperity Board's core work. This leftover pool from earlier economic development initiatives has allowed the joint committee to establish its operating base entirely on recycled funds, insulating council budgets across the county from direct administrative costs.

These available funds underpin a total operating budget allocation of £454,500 designed to staff the board and fund its strategic output. Within that total, £63,200 is designated for a Project Lead role, £56,800 funds a Devolution Support Manager, and £34,500 covers essential administrative support to manage decision-making and cross-council governance. To ensure the board can deliver actual initiatives rather than just host discussions, the budget includes £100,000 for direct project funds alongside £200,000 earmarked specifically for commissioned work and expert advice. This structured resourcing gives the six councils a fully functioning regional entity equipped to lead policy, direct research, and coordinate growth programs across Berkshire cleanly and efficiently.

The collapse of the £18 billion mayoral dream

Berkshire’s decision to pursue its own pragmatic local pathway becomes clearest when viewed against the swift collapse of wider regional mayoral ambitions across the Thames Valley. The sub-regional economy is a formidable wealth generator, producing £97 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA). That figure makes the Thames Valley the third largest regional economy in the United Kingdom, standing behind only London and Greater Manchester. Economic modelling had painted an enticing picture of what a combined regional authority might achieve, showing that a Thames Valley Mayoral Strategic Authority could add up to £18.7 billion every year to the sub-regional economy by 2040 compared to piecemeal local authority initiatives.

For a brief moment, political momentum appeared to align across county boundaries. On 24 March 2026, 12 council leaders representing upper-tier and district authorities across Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Swindon jointly signed an official Expression of Interest letter submitted to HM Government. The proposal sought to establish a single Mayoral Strategic Authority designed to unlock direct central government funding for major strategic infrastructure, transport schemes and skills development across the multi-county footprint.

Yet behind the joint letter, consensus was fragile, and the grand plan collapsed within three months. On 17 June 2026, Oxfordshire County Council Leader Tim Bearder effectively killed the proposal by exercising a formal veto. Bearder challenged the basic financial logic of the arrangement, pointing out that establishing and running a Thames Valley Mayoral Strategic Authority would cost local councils approximately £1 million a year, whereas central government was offering just £250,000 annually in administrative funding to support it.

Scepticism was not confined to Oxfordshire. Within Berkshire, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council also voted down the mayoral proposal, citing an insufficient deal on devolved powers and money from central government. To the north, Buckinghamshire Council took an even firmer stance, refusing to be drawn into the Thames Valley regional strategic development map at all and opting instead to seek its own single-county foundation authority.

Buckinghamshire Council Leader Councillor Steven Broadbent made his authority's opposition crystal clear when demanding that Whitehall alter its strategic maps:

"This does not reflect our position, and we have asked the government to correct the map to show Buckinghamshire as 'grey space', as there is no consensus for our inclusion."

With one council leader wielding a veto, another authority rejecting the financial terms, and a third opting out entirely to become 'grey space', the £18.7 billion mayoral dream dissolved into political and financial disputes. It was against this chaotic backdrop that Berkshire's six unitary authorities chose a very different route. Rather than chasing a contentious regional superstructure, Berkshire leaders focused their efforts on building a lean, functional joint board capable of making immediate progress on housing, net zero goals and local economic support.

Lessons from Shire Hall

The deep-seated reluctance to erect grand regional political structures across Berkshire is rooted in the county's administrative history. For more than a century, strategic decisions across the area were directed from a single central headquarters. Established in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, Berkshire County Council governed regional affairs from Shire Hall in Shinfield Park, Reading. That era of centralized administration came to an end on 31 March 1998, when the county council was formally abolished under the Local Government Act 1992. On 1 April 1998, statutory responsibilities were carved up and distributed among six independent unitary authorities—Reading, West Berkshire, Wokingham, Bracknell Forest, Slough, and Windsor & Maidenhead—granting each council complete authority over its local services.

Having broken free from countywide administration 28 years ago, Berkshire's six unitaries have remained protective of their hard-won autonomy. Rather than risking a return to heavy-handed regional oversight or erecting costly new tiers of political bureaucracy, the six authorities have consistently preferred voluntary joint committees and task-focused partnerships. These flexible arrangements enable the councils to present a unified front on strategic infrastructure, economic development, and spatial planning, while ensuring statutory power and decision-making remain anchored within individual municipal town halls rather than a centralized regional board.

That fundamental preference for pragmatic execution over institutional build-up is reflected in how Berkshire has approached its senior regional appointments compared to its neighbours. While Oxfordshire appointed a legal specialist, Kim Sawyer, as Programme Director to manage procedural frameworks and statutory drafting for regional governance, Berkshire’s local authorities deliberately took a different route for their own joint development framework.

In appointing Saba Tahzib as Director of Devolution and Growth, Berkshire selected a strategist with eight years of central government experience inside the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government between 2017 and 2025, where her responsibilities included serving as Deputy Director for Local Growth Strategy. Rather than structuring the post around formal legal administration, Berkshire leaders specifically designed the £130,000 role to focus directly on practical placemaking, spatial growth, and housing delivery. The choice shows a clear local priority: bringing in experienced civil service expertise to secure national investment and speed up delivery, without recreating the top-heavy regional apparatus that was dismantled at Shinfield Park nearly three decades ago.

What pragmatic regionalism is delivering on the ground

Away from high-level political posturing and cross-county debates, Berkshire's joint working model has begun compiling a distinct track record of practical outcomes on the ground. Official figures released by Reading Borough Council reveal that shared initiatives across the six unitary authorities have so far delivered 17,251 energy efficiency schemes right across the ceremonial county. On the employment and training front, the joint Connect to Work programme delivered by Berkshire councils has successfully supported 116 individuals into employment, while officers have run 152 dedicated business support sessions designed to help local companies manage economic challenges.

This joint approach is also opening doors to larger national funding streams that individual authorities struggle to tap alone. At its meeting on 21 September 2026, the Berkshire Prosperity Board formally initiated discussions to establish a unified regional joint approach to deliver affordable and social housing. This housing push sits alongside the board's five other thematic workstreams—health and inequalities, skills and education, sector development, strategic infrastructure, and net zero—designed to align growth across municipal lines. The collaborative shift carries clear economic logic: national housing agency Homes England actively incentivises housing delivery across multi-authority footprints, giving combined bodies like the Prosperity Board increased access to strategic housing infrastructure funds that require cross-border coordination.

At the same time, commercial leadership has been brought directly into the fold through the Berkshire Business Board. Chaired by Penny Rinta-Suksi, Commercial Partner at Blake Morgan LLP in Reading, the business board serves as the primary private sector partner aligning business needs with local authority strategy. In September 2026, the business board gathered at Slough & Langley College on Station Road in Langley to align regional policies on local skills, technical apprenticeships, and employment pipelines across the county.

Speaking after the meeting in Langley, Rinta-Suksi emphasised the commercial imperative behind joint working: "I am really pleased to be involved with the BBB as I believe that as a long-term resident in the Thames Valley and business owner in Reading and Oxford, I believe passionately in the business environment in the region and its continued success both now and for our families in the future."

That structured dialogue between council leaders and private sector partners is already scheduled to continue into the winter. Following the work at Slough & Langley College, the Berkshire Business Board will hold its next regional meeting in December 2026 at Newbury Racecourse, keeping economic growth, skills development, and targeted local investment firmly on the regional agenda.

The regional map across Berkshire and its borderlands is set to shift again on 1 April 2028, following a major local government reorganisation announced by HM Government on 16 July 2026. Under the restructuring plan, seven existing district and county councils spanning Oxfordshire and West Berkshire will be dissolved and reorganised into three brand-new unitary authorities. The move redraws administrative lines across the upper Thames Valley, altering how municipal governance operates along Berkshire's western frontier.

The centerpiece of this structural realignment is the creation of Ridgeway Council, which will formally assume control on 1 April 2028. The new unitary body will merge West Berkshire Council with South Oxfordshire District Council and Vale of White Horse District Council into a single authority. Crucially for Reading, the government's boundary decision confirmed that zero changes will be made to the local authority boundary between West Berkshire and Reading Borough Council. Reading's municipal boundaries remain entirely intact, keeping the borough's urban footprint unchanged while its western neighbour transforms into a vast cross-county council.

This pending merger introduces a novel structural dynamic for joint economic planning across Berkshire. When Ridgeway Council comes into official existence in April 2028, it will inherit dual obligations, operating simultaneously within Oxfordshire's reconfigured framework and Berkshire's existing joint development structures. West Berkshire Council, headquartered at Market Street Council Offices in Newbury, has already demonstrated this cross-boundary coordination by leading website development for the Berkshire Prosperity Board, ensuring joint initiatives across health, skills, affordable housing, sector development, strategic infrastructure, and net zero remain on track.

For local decision-makers, developers, and commercial leaders following these structural shifts, the focus moves directly to upcoming investment decisions and regional strategy. The immediate next step on the regional calendar takes place on Thursday 5 November 2026, when Reading Town Hall on Blagrave Street hosts the annual BerksProp Summit. The event will bring council leaders, private sector partners, and investors together in central Reading to set out concrete plans for regional growth, commercial investment, and shared infrastructure delivery across the county.