Heart of Wessex Combined Authority

In January 2025, following a vote by Wiltshire Council, the leaders of Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire councils said they had written to the UK government to show support for devolution of powers to the proposed combined authority.

This was despite reservations among Wiltshire councillors who felt that a mayor was "not right for a large rural area".

The three leaders said they remained open to discussions with the councils of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP), Swindon and North Somerset.

[4][5] In the same month, BCP councillors voted in favour of joining the three largely rural counties, rather than supporting the Hampshire and Solent proposal involving Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

[6] In December 2024, Mid Dorset and North Poole MP Vikki Slade compared a proposed Wessex mayor to the Thomas Hardy character Jude the Obscure from his Wessex fictional literary landscape.