Sir Ian Wrigglesworth issues North-South divide warning
Sep 21 2010 by William Green, The Journal
IT will be a “miracle” if the coalition solves the North-South divide because of shrinking funds, according to the North East Liberal Denmocrat charged with tackling the problem.
Port of Tyne chairman Sir Ian Wrigglesworth issued the extraordinary warning despite being deputy chairman of the Government’s £1bn two-year regional growth fund, designed to help areas like the North East offset public sector cuts.
“I think it is important that expectations for the fund aren’t raised too high,” said Sir Ian, speaking at a fringe event at the Liberal Democrat conference.
“A billion sounds like a lot, but as anyone involved in Government either locally or nationally knows only too well a billion over two years is not a lot of money.”
He added: “It would be an absolute miracle that even with a fixed five-year Parliament it was able to do something that no Government has been able to do since the 1930s.
“It hasn’t been rectified out in that time, so I think it would be very ambitious to suggest the current Government, even if it has the archangel Gabriel at its head, would be able to deliver the complete reversal of the difficulties that exist. That doesn’t mean, however, that a great deal can’t be done and that’s really what we need to discuss, how best to make changes that will help.”
Sir Ian also warned that the fund would not be used to fund infrastructure improvements, despite business chiefs stressing that high-quality transport links are vital to economic growth.
And he threw a huge question mark over how another key plank of the Government’s drive to boost economic growth in areas like the North East.
Sir Ian said the fund would be targeted at private businesses, not new local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) that are replacing regional development agencies – leaving uncertainty about how they will be funded. He said: “We want more people to have the aspiration, the desire the ambition in the private sector to do the things that are necessary to rebalance the economy in the regions.
“I think the growth fund will spend a lot of its time and quite a lot of its money doing just that, trying to stimulate people to build the private sector in a way that hasn’t happened.”
But he called for a cultural change in the region, saying: “The real challenge that we are talking about is actually in people’s minds. Regeneration is in people’s minds, it is actually changing people’s attitudes.”
