Business and political leaders in the North East have gave a fairly lukewarm reaction to the Chancellor’s Spring Statement, saying it did not do enough to tackle rising costs being faced by families and firms alike.
Rishi Sunak announced a cut in fuel duty and a rise in the threshold for workers to pay National Insurance. But with the statement on Wednesday coming after official figures showed another rise in inflation, most groups in the region felt the measures announced did not go far enough.
Arlen Pettitt, North East England Chamber of Commerce knowledge development manager said: “This Spring Statement was not on a significant enough scale to make a difference to many businesses, or our region as a whole, at present” while Richard Baker, strategy and policy director at the North East LEP, said: “Some of the big investments which could have accelerated growth in the North East will await the Budget. We also expect to see more detail on regional policy issues, including detail on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, later in the year."
Read more : could part of Eldon Square be turned into flats?
Labour politicians from the region including Nick Brown, Nick Forbes and Kim McGuinness criticised the lack of action on rising cost of living pressures, though there was praise for the Chancellor from Tory MPs Richard Holden and Guy Opperman, who highlighted measures to reduce the National Insurance burden.
But many felt not enough was being done for the poorest in society. Amanda Bailey, director of the North East Child Poverty Commission, said: “Today was an opportunity to protect those on the lowest incomes across our region from even greater hardship in the face of the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. That opportunity was well and truly missed.”
Levelling up 'won't be forgotten'
The minister for Levelling Up has said the North East “won’t be forgotten” as two projects in County Durham are given a £120,000 boost.
Neil O’Brien was in County Durham on Thursday visiting the historic High House Chapel in Weardale and the neglected Dorset Place Community centre in Bishop Auckland which are both due to be transformed. Both projects will benefit from more than £120,000 as part of the Government’s Community Ownership Fund. The funding will help support community takeovers of much-loved assets as part of the Government’s mission to level up across the country.
As work got under way to transform the buildings, Mr O’Brien said he wants to see more high-paid jobs in the area. He said: “We want to make sure County Durham and the North East are not forgotten and we want to address some of the issues that people are concerned about.
“We want to try and make sure there are more high-paid jobs here by doing a lot of different things. It’s also about looking at the underlying issues that can hold communities back like health inequalities. Everything we are doing from direct funding to the high street regeneration fund to this in Bishop Auckland, it’s all part of it.”
Conservatives hold on to council seat
“I did it for him” - those were the words of the newly elected councillor Eve Chicken after she succeeded her close friend Paul Scott following a by-election victory.
Voters in the Seghill with Seaton Delaval ward took to the polls on Thursday to elect a new councillor following the death of Paul Scott, the Conservative councillor who won the seat from Labour in 2021.
Coun Chicken was a close friend of Mr Scott, and the pair worked closely together during his time as county councillor while Coun Chicken was a member of Seaton Valley Community Council. Mr Scott died suddenly in January. The cause of his death has not been made public.
Conservative candidate Coun Chicken won on the night with an impressive 702 votes, coming in almost 200 ahead of her nearest rival, Labour’s Christine Savage. Green Party candidate Clive Robson received 29 votes, while Alisdair Gibbs-Barton got 21 votes. The turnout for the election was 27.4%, down from 35.2% in last year’s local elections.
Economy being held back
Newcastle’s economy is losing £1.7bn a year because of poor public transport and badly planned neighbourhoods, a new study claims.
The research by the Centre for Cities group says that more than four million people living around the Northern cities of Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool are unable to travel to their city centres via public transport within 30 minutes, restricting them from employment and education opportunities. Only around a third of people in Northern urban areas are well connected to city centres, half the levels of European cities such as Hamburg, Marseille and Bilbao.
Newcastle outperforms Northern counterparts in terms of connectivity, with 46% of residents able to reach the city centre in 30 minutes or less, but that is still well below the similarly-sized French city of Lille, where 70% of people can. The research shines a light on two of the key pledges in the Government’s recent Levelling Up White Paper that it will create a “globally competitive city” in every region of the UK, as well as aspirations to bring public transport systems around the country closer to the standards of services in London.
Tyne Bridge repair timeline in doubt
Council chiefs have refused to commit to having the Tyne Bridge restored to its full glory in time for its 100th birthday.
The iconic symbol of the North East is desperate for a total makeover, with it not having received any major maintenance for two decades – leaving it in dire need of a repaint and a series of structural repairs. A £40m funding bid to return the rusted crossing to its fitting state, plus renovate the Central Motorway, has been awaiting Government approval for more than two years.
And while there is now a cautious expectation that the Department for Transport (DfT) will sign off on the project, city leaders were reluctant to commit on Monday night to having the overdue repairs completed in time for the bridge’s centenary year in 2028.
It has long been Newcastle City Council’s stated ambition to have the Tyne Bridge once again looking its best in time for that landmark occasion. Civic centre officials are hoping that the Government will agree to cover the bulk of the funding for the scheme this May, with work on the bridge starting this summer and complete in 2024 – while repairs to the Central Motorway are expected to start in 2023 and be finished in 2026.
But at a cabinet meeting on Monday, there were warnings that the full scale of the bridge’s sad deterioration remains unknown – and that, like other major restoration projects such as the Grainger Market, engineers may yet run into unexpected problems that delay the massive works.
