Image: Preston City Council
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IN VIEW Special report by Ged Henderson
CHAMPIONS OF THE NORTH WEIGH IN
Heavyweight political champion of the North Andy Burnham wasn’t pulling any punches, declaring: “We have had the false promises of Northern Powerhouse and Levelling Up, the North can’t repeatedly be given false promises.”
The Greater Manchester mayor was in full flight, speaking to journalists covering the 2025 Convention of the North at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston in late February.
He told his lunchtime audience: “The big message that needs to come out of this convention is we need a new deal for the North of England, for this parliament and for the next decade.”
The Labour mayor’s blunt message to a Labour government was coming through loud and clear: “We need mayors and ministers working together to get that new deal.”
He added: “If there is to be airport expansion in the south east and a new corridor between Oxford and Cambridge that is only justifiable if there is that new deal for the North to balance it.
“We can’t carry on the model of economic growth that is only based around London and the south east.”
He then went on to highlight transport and housing as two of the major areas that had to be addressed.
Looking ahead to the government’s looming spending review, Mr Burnham said investment in major transport infrastructure projects in the North was vital if there was to be the much- talked about economic growth.
Earlier in the day, from the main stage, he had repeated his call for a new rail line to connect the North West to the West Midlands and said if that
It was powerful stuff, but Greater Manchester’s mayor wasn’t on his own. He was accompanied to the press conference by elected mayors from across the region in a show of great Northern unity.
From Tyneside to South Yorkshire, all had something to add and they were singing from the same hymn sheet when it came to the needs and the potential of the ‘Great North’.
Aidy Riggott, Lancashire County Council’s cabinet member for economic development
The big message that needs to come out
of this convention is we need a new deal for the North of England, for this parliament and for the next decade
did not happen the HS2 project, cancelled north of Birmingham by the previous government, would be a “monument to inequality.”
Turning towards housing, he called for a building programme across the North to deliver low carbon council houses and social housing, describing it as a “huge opportunity” to create jobs and skills.
and growth, was standing alongside them, the county being one of the three upper tier local authorities, along with Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, that have driven Lancashire’s non-mayoral devo deal forward.
The North will be the first part of England to be fully covered by devolution and mayors and leaders had arrived in Preston to highlight how
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