"There has been a lot of discussion recently about Birmingham and the Black Country authorities (Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell) coming together to form a ‘Combined Authority.’ A Combined Authority has the power to exercise any function of its constituent councils that relates to economic development and regeneration, and any of the functions that are available to integrated transport authorities.
"As you may know, Coventry, together with Solihull and Warwickshire, have been invited to be part of that entity and the ruling Labour Group on Coventry City Council are currently exploring that possibility. The position of the Conservative Group is that, despite pressure from Government, we are not in favour of joining a West Midlands Combined Authority.
“It is important that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past and currently we are not in favour of joining a Combined Authority with Birmingham unless there are compelling reasons to do so.To date, we have not seen strong evidence that joining a Combined Authority with Birmingham is in the best interests of the City of Coventry.”