Independent view (From Durham Times)

Independent view

11:29am Friday 4th December 2009

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REGIONAL development agencies are set to become one of the battlegrounds in next year’s general election, with Labour and the Conservatives adopting very different positions on these bodies charged with spending so much of our money.

In short, Labour would give One North East greater power; the Conservatives would scrap it altogether. Labour says RDAs are vital to the effective regeneration of our industrial cities and helping rural areas adapt to changing circumstances.

The Conservatives say they are unelected and unaccountable quangos, and their power, and some of the money, should be devolved to local authorities. The truth, as ever, lies somewhere between and depends on where you live.

The position of the Conservatives on a regional development agency for South-East England, for example, is entirely understandable, but in the less well-off parts of the UK, the argument is less obvious.

Regeneration and adaptation doesn’t just happen, it needs pump-priming, especially in areas where the economy is underdeveloped. As the Conservatives realised when they set up urban development corporations in the eighties, it sometimes take a body separate from vested interest and independently funded to get things done. Arguably, that is exactly what One North East has been doing.

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