SIR John Hall has launched an attack on the “unambitious” business and council leaders partnership set up by the coalition to oversee regeneration in the North East.
The man behind the Metrocentre has called on members of the region’s local enterprise partnership to unite with their Teesside colleagues and push for real change.
Sir John, speaking at an event arranged for the Durham Institute of Directors, questioned how a partnership short of money and legal powers could make any difference.
Instead, Sir John said the region should look to recreate the success of the Northern Development Company he helped set up and “aim bigger”.
The enterprise partnership’s role was robustly defended by board members Gill Southern and David Land, who also hit out at claims that the North Eastern partnership was lagging behind its Tees Valley counterpart.
Ms Southern made clear the partnership was “the only game in town” and the region had the choice of either backing it or risking failure.
Sir John said: “We are not thinking big enough. Right now we are divided as a region and we are vulnerable as a result. We need to think how are we going to respond to the bigger challenges, to an independent Scotland or to the need for high speed rail to actually come here. That need for large scale ambition, for a strong voice, that is why we founded the Northern Development Company, you don’t do it by a group of people coming together to act as just ambassadors for their own area, you are wasting your time if you do not think big enough.”
Sir John went on to describe how he believed the region had missed the chance to safeguard a regional body in the run-up to the last General Election.
He described how Eric Pickles, now Communities Secretary, visited the region and told business heads such as himself to “get on with it” if they wanted to act as one local enterprise partnership.
“What we now know is that Tees Valley decided to do their own thing and the rest of the region had to do its own thing,” he said.
“Now we find ourselves all sat here once again going over the problems we face, the rising unemployment.
“I won’t be here in 40 years but you can see we will still be sat around talking about what needs to be done but not doing anything. We have to fight the Conservative party and show them that we do not think this is good enough.”
