CALLS have been made for Greater Manchester to be granted more powers to manage its own affairs in light of the Scottish people voting against independence.

The result means Scotland will remain part of the UK but Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to follow through with plans to offer more powers to the Scottish Parliament.

Now other areas of the UK could be set to benefit from devolved powers and Bolton Council’s chief executive, Sean Harriss believes that Greater Manchester is the ideal candidate. He said: “I think it is really important that there is a greater amount of devolution from Whitehall to city regions.

“Greater Manchester is probably the only place that has got the experience and the political leaders to make devolution happen — we can do it.”

A report by think tank ResPublica has proposed plans for a Greater Manchester Assembly lead by an elected mayor which would be given income-tax raising powers and complete control of spending for the region.

The report, entitled “Devo Max – Devo Manc” said that the new authority would also have to commit to devolving further powers to local authorities within its area — such as Bolton.

Council leader Cliff Morris agreed that the region should be given more power to handle its own affairs. He added: “We will have to wait to see what happens, but you can rest assured we will be in there batting for our corner during the discussions.”

The borough’s three MPs have all echoed the need for devolution, but have mixed views on how the power should be distributed.

Yasmin Quereshi, the MP for Bolton South East, said: “I don’t think we need to create new assemblies, that is another layer of democracy — but we need to give more powers to the authorities that have already been elected.”

Julie Hilling, who represents Bolton West said: “I think we should look at what we need to do and what decisions need to be made before we set out the way we want to do it.”

Bolton North East MP David Crausby said devolution was definitely needed but disagreed with the idea of a Greater Manchester assembly.

He said: “If you are creating a political region it needs to be reflective of the people in it — there are many people in Greater Manchester who don’t want to be associated with Manchester.

“I think it would end up being dominated by Manchester, which is a completely different place to Bolton. I think our links to Lancashire are really important.”