Decentralisation does actually mean local decision making

This is not specifically to make fun of the LibDems - not specifically, you understand - but it is to point out the absurdity of what is being complained about here:

Pothole repairs delayed by up to 18 months

Data from 81 councils was analysed by the Liberal Democrats which say that the roads postcode lottery in the UK must end

That potholes might take 18 months to repair doesn't strike us as a very good allocation of resources. We’ve long had a more than sneaking admiration for the guerilla gardeners of the native Bath of the one of us - leave a pothole too long in that city and they’ll plant a flower or three in it to highlight the hole.

However, it is necessary to grasp what decentralisation means:

Helen Morgan MP, the Liberal Democrats local government spokesperson, said that potholes were plaguing the country’s roads and the postcode lottery had to end.

Assume that we decentralise decision making. Push it down to the appropriate level perhaps. Then - because this is what decision making is about - there will be, in different places, different decisions made about resource allocation. Some will decide to fix potholes in a few weeks, some in many months. Locals can then vote for their local decision makers as they wish - and as decided by their views of the decisions made on fixing, or not fixing, potholes.

That is, local democracy means we’ll have a postcode lottery over everything that is subject to local democracy. That’s the very point of our having that local power nexus, so that locals get to decide about their locality.

Complaining about potholes is fine. Complaining about postcode lotteries is fine. Complaining about both at the same time is cakeism. For what is local democracy if it isn’t the creation of a postcode lottery?