PLANS for the county to get an elected mayor will not be affected by a separate bid for a super council, a business leader has insisted.

Nigel Tipple, chief executive of Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), said efforts to secure hundreds of millions of pounds in funding from the Government were still continuing.

Councils have jointly been working on the devolution bid, which would set up a mayor and combined authority to claw back powers from Westminster, since late last year.

But some local authority leaders have accused Oxfordshire County Council of putting the process at risk.

On Thursday it revealed proposals to abolish all of the six biggest councils and replace them with a single organisation.

They claimed the proposals were a ‘distraction’ from the devolution bid, which they say will be quicker to deliver.

But Mr Tipple sought to ease fears yesterday. He said: “We have received information from the county council and clearly will need to digest that, but equally we are continuing to work with all of the local authorities on devolution proposals.

“They are currently predicated on a structure that includes a mayor and combined authority and we continue to support that.

“The [super council proposal] is certainly not going to be a distraction from the work I am involved in.

“We have found a way of moving forward the conversation on devolution... and I have not been given any indications that the county council is not still supportive of that.”