During the past week, the Liverpool city regions political leadership – or ‘super cabinet’ as they like to be referred to- have conspired to throw away one Billion pounds of investment into Greater Liverpool.

The Tesco/Everton plan for Kirkby was knocked back by the government partly as a result of local squabbling, with Liverpool and Sefton council’s fiercely objecting to Knowsley’s regeneration plans for a town that was built as an overspill for the city, and has duly been abandoned by the city.

This was followed by a failure of our ‘super cabinet’, made up of leaders from Halton, Wirral, St. Helens, Sefton, Knowsley and Liverpool, to make any positive decision about Merseyside’s transport priorities, leaving the tram project in limbo once again.

The existence of the ‘super cabinet’ and previous Mersey wide local government arrangements has failed to deliver one single significant cross boundary project.

In its current form, the Liverpool city region simply doesn’t work. Parochialism, weak leadership and a lack of strategic vision can all be cited as reasons for this.

If it’s broken, fix it. An elected mayor for Greater Liverpool anyone?