THE Tories’ tourism spokesman sparked fury in the region last night after claiming the North East was receiving too much money to market itself.

Tourist organisations who between them contribute nearly £4bn a year to the region’s economy have been told they may lose out as the axe hangs over award-winning national campaigns such “passionate places, passionate people”.

Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative’s shadow tourism spokesman, has warned that, in his view, there is up to seven times too much money going to the North East.

In the House of Commons this week he told MPs debating the future of the British economy that development agencies such as One North East were not necessarily best placed to decide how to spend tourism cash.

Challenged by Blaydon MP Dave Anderson to back the work done by North East regeneration groups in increasing tourist numbers, Mr Ellwood said changes needed to be made.

“I hope that tourism is growing by more in the North East than anywhere else, because it gets seven times the amount of money that the South West does, even though its tourism industry is seven times smaller; the irony there is that the money has not gone to where the tourism industries should actually be,” the Bournemouth MP said. He added that the problem was not just in where the money went, but in overlapping efforts to promote the UK overseas.

The potential cuts have sparked concern across the region’s tourist sector, as staff contemplate the difficult task of promoting the North without Government support.

Fiona Watson, finance officer at the Vindolanda Roman site near Hadrian’s Wall, said many of the region’s most successful tourist spots benefited from the region promoting itself together. She said: “From our point of view we cannot see any benefit of reducing the funding.

“We are self-funded through visitor numbers, and while we have recently won some match funding from One North East, and are very grateful for that, we do not have enough money to promote ourselves nationally.