Mandelson tries to open up Tory split over One North East

Feb 25 2010 by William Green, The Journal

PRESSURE is mounting on David Cameron from Tory-supporting business leaders not to axe the region’s development agency, Labour has claimed.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour-supporting business chiefs valued the work of One North East.

The Conservatives are finalising plans to replace regional development agencies with local enterprise partnerships led by councillors and businesses if they win the General Election.

The developments come as The Journal’s Case for the North East has highlighted how the region can achieve more working together rather than as competing local areas.

Lord Mandelson claimed One North East was “indispensable” and business leaders liked the agency’s track record of supporting new industries and jobs – and developing infrastructure vital to boosting growth.

“Every part of the business community in the North East is saying this to me whether they are Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour. They are saying the same things, hands off our regional development agency,” he said.

“We have to grow together, not grow apart in every region in the country and not just the North East and the RDA is the main instrument that we have to make sure the whole of the North East benefits from the upside as recovery and growth gets under way.”

He pointed to One North East helping deliver a new research centre on low-carbon vehicles and an open access test track. “These are essential pieces of public infrastructure which individual companies and enterprises would not be able to create for themselves.

“They are too big, they are too expensive for any one company to create on their own. That’s why the Government has to get involved. That’s why the RDA has to be there,” he added.