District council leader Ferris Cowper said the county council’s devloution bid for Hampshire and Isle of Wight, had failed because most leaders had chosen not to sign up to it.

A deal that excludes Hampshire County Council, but includes local authorities covering East Hampshire and Portsmouth and Southampton, was agreed over the weekend ahead of the announcement as part of Chancellor George Osborne’s budget on Tuesday.

In a statement on Tuesday, Portsmouth City Council leader Donna Jones, confirmed the conclusion of negotiations with HM Treasury to achieve a Solent devolution deal.

It will include eight councils including East Hampshire district, Eastleigh, Fareham, Gosport and Havant borough councils and the Isle of Wight. And Mr Cowper, who had reservations about a devoltion deal when it was first suggested last year, said: “The Government has encouraged the county council to join the Solent Combined Authority bid so its skills can be readily deployed in this vital economic engine room of the county.”

He said his reasons for preferring the Solent bid over the defunct county bid were: “Democracy, housing scale and economic focus.”

The democratic point is distinguished by the unanimous agreement of all eight Solent leaders to opt for the appointment of “a constrained mayor”, he said. Rather than adopting the standard Government model for a directly elected mayor – which gives the mayor complete power over the local councils involved, relegating the mayor’s cabinet to a volunteer advisory body – the Solent mayoral arrangement would give the cabinet executive power.

In almost all cases, the mayor’s powers would be curtailed by a two-thirds majority cabinet vote and, in the case of housing numbers, every member of the cabinet would have a veto.

Mr Cowper, who represents Grayshott, added: “This constrained model offers far greater assurance to the residents, businesses and volunteer groups in East Hampshire that the increased centralisation and geographical remoteness of the new mayor will not bring about insensitive or inappropriate decisions to our communities,”