This website has been arguing since it was established in January 2021 for the North East’s seven councils (the LA7) to reunite and do a devolution deal with the government in order to get the most of whatever funding is made available for levelling up.
Yesterday’s announcement by Nissan and its partner Envision AESC that they are to invest £1bn in Sunderland for the manufacture of electric vehicles and the batteries to power them, creating…
By Ray Lowry Level-up with oral health: How the North East led the way with a much- forgotten intervention Levelling up is not just a matter of economics. It is…
Having completed the formal, but historic, business of electing a non-Labour leadership for the first time in a century, it is now vital for Durham County Council to turn its…
It would be easy to interpret Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng’s explanation for recent announcements that government departments are to move to Darlington as party political bias. Easy but wrong. The…
Actually making it [levelling up] happen is what now needs to occur, or some of those who voted for more of the same might change their minds. Graeme Whitfield, Business…
There has been talk for months of much-coveted transport powers coming our region’s way if a deal can be struck to create a new mayoral role that would reunite seven…
The Queen’s Speech promised a ‘Levelling Up’ White Paper – but not yet, as anticipated by this website. It is now expected later this year. There are those in the…
North East councillors have some important and difficult decisions to make following the elections that seriously weakened the Labour Party’s grip on power as the results trickled in over the…
Few issues are of greater importance to the economic prosperity of the North East than devolution, and few occasions are more opportune to discuss it than local election time. Devolution in this region has become a game of realpolitik, and the people are losing.
The North East’s Budget disaster yesterday, when it got nothing from Chancellor Rishi Sunak beyond what was available to all, can be directly traced back to 6 September 2016, when the leaders of the area’s seven councils short-sightedly voted 4-3 to reject a devolution deal offered by the government.
North East England has been at or near the bottom of the UK’s economic performance charts for decades. Governments of all parties have promised ‘levelling up’, to use the current phrase, but have failed to deliver for the people. The people, mainly, have put up with it, returning the same party to Westminster and to their local town halls time and again.