A North East mayor has hit out at the Government over plans to heavily scale back one of Liz Truss’ flagship policies.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed in his Autumn Statement last week that he would “change” the Government’s approach to investment zones, proposed areas where businesses would have been given tax breaks under plans in his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng’s infamous mini-budget in September. It had been claimed that bids to create two such zones, where planning rules would also have been relaxed, across Newcastle, Northumberland, and North Tyneside would create 23,000 new jobs and see 8,000 new homes built.
But with Rishi Sunak’s administration now seeming to backtrack on the idea, North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll has slammed the Government for performing such a quickfire U-turn after council officials across the country had scrambled to put bids together. The Labour mayor told a North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA) meeting on Tuesday that the rapid policy reversal was “no way to be treating hard working officers across the country".
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He said: “We were given almost no notice of those things and they [NTCA officers] spent about a fortnight working late every night – I was getting emails asking if we are all right to sign this off at midnight.
"Then for the government to say ‘actually we aren’t sure, we are going to have a rethink’, is no way to be treating hard working officers across the country. It won’t just be us, it will be in every authority across the country. Thank you very much to our team who run through walls to get this stuff done, they really do.”
Mr Hunt announced last Thursday that revised investment zone plans, expected to be announced ahead of next spring’s Budget, would “focus on leveraging our research strengths, to help build clusters for our new growth industries”.
One of the North of Tyne bids included land surrounding the Northumberland Line railway, in the hope of attracting employers and housebuilders to towns served by the route between Newcastle and Ashington ahead of it reopening to passenger trains next year for the first time in decades. The second bid focused on an “Arc of Energy Innovation” based around clean energy industries in areas including the banks of the Tyne, the Newcastle International Airport Business Park, Blyth Energy Central, and Lynefield Park in Lynemouth.
Durham County Council had also lodged bids for investment zones at NETPark in Sedgefield and Aykley Heads in Durham City, while the International Advanced Manufacturing Park and Sunderland riverside were also put forward as possible locations.
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