Voters could head to the ballot box to cast their vote for the first elected mayor of East Anglia as soon as next year, the communities secretary has said.

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Senior cabinet minister Greg Clark, who has been tasked with overseeing the handover of powers to the regions, travelled to Cambridge yesterday to meet leaders from Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire in a bid to secure a three-county deal.

He said the East of England should not be on a 'slower track' than Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, where deals have already been agreed.

Just weeks ago Cambridgeshire's political top brass wrote to Norfolk and Suffolk to say they were not interested in joining forces, but leaders have agreed to look again following the meeting with the delegation from Westminster, which also included former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine.

Mr Clark said there had been a lot of enthusiasm about a potential devolution deal at the meeting in Cambridge, where new powers over housing, skills and transport from Westminster and Whitehall were discussed.

'All of the leaders and the Leps [local enterprise partnerships] will now talk to say what the concrete asks of a proposal will be, bearing in mind that different areas have different aspirations,' he said.

Questioned about whether a deal which would involve Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgshire councils was the only deal in on the table for the region, Mr Clark said: 'I am not convinced that having micro-deals lives up to the potential of the area of being one of the strongest motors of the whole national economy at a time in its history when it is poised to become even more successful and celebrated than it is already.' And he was clear that new powers would have to come with an elected mayor.

'If you want to take powers away from secretaries of state and be that ambitious, and we do and have been in Manchester, then you need to have someone who will hold those powers with a mandate,' he said.

Mr Clark added that while a date for mayoral election had not been discussed, a 2017 poll was 'possible'.

'I see no reason why the East of the country should be on a slower track than the north and the West Midlands,' he said. George Nobbs, leader of Norfolk County Council, said: 'It was an extremely positive meeting and all the people there have agreed to go away and urgently work on a practical set of proposals for a devolved authority that would include Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough. We expect to be working intensely on that over the next few days.'