CAMPAIGNERS have renewed their calls for a referendum on Devo Manc.

Under the slogan, ‘Devo Mancs? No Thanks! We're Lancs!’, the group says it is opposed ‘to the undemocratic imposition of the Devo Manc deal on residents without any reference as to their views on the subject’.

Their aim is to make Greater Manchester's Combined Authority (GMCA) and the leader of Wigan Council Lord Peter Smith listen to the views of residents in all 10 boroughs.

A spokesperson on behalf of the campaigners said: "The Government never consulted us about whether we wanted to be part of the new county of Greater Manchester back in 1974, or even whether the people of towns like Leigh, Atherton, Tyldesley, Hindley wanted to be part of the then new Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council area either.

“We were also never consulted or asked our views about the abolition of the county of Greater Manchester's by Margaret Thatcher's Government in the 1980's, or the borough's membership of AGMA, and the GMCA after that.

"Now we are to have something else imposed on us again, without any reference to any of our views on the subject, in which the word 'Greater' in 'Greater Manchester' seems to have been given the boot.”

They have agreed to support the call for an in/out referendum on the Wigan Borough’s continued membership of the GMCA and to push links with Lancashire to be strengthened.

The spokesman said that rather than having a directly elected council the new Manchester ‘city region’ will instead be run by a non-directly elected committee of the area's ten local council leaders chaired by a new Mayor.

He said: “The whole thing is an absolute mockery of democracy and shows nothing but an utter contempt for the views of local voters.”

You can sign the petition by searching for Devo Mancs? No Thanks! We're Lancs in change.org.