Leading a Better Region

I will use experiences from my own life to show how we can do so much better for a wealthier healthier and more prosperous future.

If you walk with me down any major shopping parade in the North East and look up you will see the wealth from the last era of great economic growth. The time of coal. Coal was the North East oil that allowed us to produce the manufactured goods that we sold to the rest of the world. If we want that level of prosperity back again we will need the energy resources to make it happen.

As once we looked to the North East’s energy resources once we can now look to them once more. We have no oil, and we have no gas, the coal we have is not easily mined in thin seams. What we do have is some of the best wind resources in Western Europe. The cheapest and easiest way of generating electricity today is by wind turbine. A wind turbine can be constructed in 6 weeks, connection can take much longer.

I am seeking a democratic mandate for the region to build Europe’s largest onshore wind farm. From this energy asset we will see the development of industrial sites that can use this new energy resource to once more make the goods that we can sell to the rest of the world, once again making the northeast the richest area of great Britain.

The curent barriers to wind farms are from local council planning.  I will change this by declaring a mayoralty developement area from Newton Aycliffe in the south to Barnard Castle in land to Hexham up to the bottom of the Northumberland National park (the mayor has no planning powers there).  The wind farm will be owned by the people of the North East.  Section 41 of the mayoralty devolution deal allows for the mayoralty to borrow for projective infrastructure, the size of this borrowing is as yet unknown and will be a question for the mayor to consult on once elected, wind turbines are now very productive.  The turbines will run for approximately 40 years meaning that this will be a generational asset that will allow the tranformation of the North East economy.  The revenue from the North East Wind Asset will allow the funding of the rest of my program for economic growth.