FORMER Hull city council leader Colin Inglis says now is the time to grab devolved decision-making powers from Whitehall.
He also said he believes there will eventually be a Greater Hull authority.
Councillor Inglis spoke out after current city council leader Steve Brady criticised North Lincolnshire Council leader Liz Redfern for suggesting a public referendum on closer co-operation between the councils around the Humber.
A referendum organised by East Riding Council during the summer rejected the idea of any expansion of Hull's boundaries into adjacent parishes.
Cllr Inglis said: "No national politician of any party has been effective in getting any sort of devolution for the English regions.
"Lord Prescott tried his best, but Tony Blair wasn't really having any of it.
"Some of us who really thought devolution was a very good idea and was the only way we were going to get a decent deal out of this country for places such as Hull were bitterly disappointed when all that went west more than ten years ago."
He said the issue had been resurrected thanks to the debate over Scottish independence.
"We now have a second chance, probably a last bite of the cherry in my lifetime, I suspect," he said.
"It will be very interesting over the next year or two to see where local government ends up and whether it goes bankrupt, because something needs to change.
"Until we actually have, as of right, some of those taxes back in places such as Hull, rather than relying on the largesse of people such as (communities secretary) Eric Pickles, who is not exactly well-known for his generosity, then we are going to be in this mess.
"The Government has only woken up because of what happened in Scotland, so we need to keep working with our colleagues on other councils to get the deal we actually need in order to deliver for local people."
He said Hull's recent lobbying, which included a trip to meet council counterparts in Liverpool, had to continue.
"There is a movement now afoot to try to achieve that," he said.
"That's what we need to be part of. That's what we have tried to do with the work we have already done with the commission we set up.
"The reality is that a Greater Hull will happen at some point.
"There is an inevitability about it on all sorts of fronts.
"We need to either expand our boundaries or have an East Riding Council that is significantly more co-operative than it is at the moment."
He cited the recent example of a possible new review by public health officials in Hull into the benefits of water fluoridation.
Cllr Inglis said: "Now, in order to be able to do that, the only way we are going to do it is with the co-operation of the East Riding, but I cannot stand here at the moment with my hand on my heart and say we will get any co-operation from them on issues like that, so we need to get ourselves into a place where that really doesn't matter."
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