HUGE change is needed to get the North East on the road to recovery, one of the men in charge of the Government’s Regional Growth Fund yesterday said.

North East businessman Sir Ian Wrigglesworth, deputy chairman of the government’s Regional Growth Fund Advisory Panel, said yesterday that the region is too reliant on the public sector to provide many of the jobs needed in the future.

He told an audience of local authorities representatives, colleges and private industry in Blyth that there needed to be a “rebalancing” between public and private sectors.

But he said that many of the bids to the Growth Fund were “disappointing” and had merely been attempts to replace money lost by the abolition of regional development agencies like One North East without making enough effort to fit the growth fund’s criteria.

A number of major regeneration projects in the North East lost out in their bids for Growth Fund cash earlier this week after the Government gave priority to schemes that would deliver jobs in the private sector.

Among those losing out were Science City in Newcastle and plans for a major conference centre on the banks of the Tyne in Gateshead.

Bidding has now opened for the second round of grants from the growth fund, but yesterday Sir Ian said: “Regions like this are over reliant on the on the public sector.

“More private sector jobs are needed. The object is to deliver growth.”