Tag: Lancashire

RAIL IN THE NORTH:WHAT DO THE PEOPLE WANT?

 

 

UP THE JUNCTION

 

The travelling public of the North deserve a proper say on what they want from their rail services.

 

This week we’ve had more announcements from on high about HS2, and backing for HS3 from Manchester to Leeds. Sir David Higgins, Chairman of High Speed Two Ltd is an excellent man but who is he talking to before he makes this pronouncements? City region leaders but is that enough? Not if you look at the rows that have broken out across the North in the wake of Sir David’s announcement.

 

Why is Liverpool being left unconnected from HS2 and HS3? Where should the stations be located in Leeds and Sheffield? On the very day eyes were focused on what will be happening in 2027, there were protests about current services between Lancaster and Barrow. And fundamentally whilst one must respect the overwhelming view of city region bosses that HS2 is good for the North, there are the doubters who believe it will just make it easier to work in Borisland (the South East).

 

So how do we solve the democratic deficit? Sir David himself calls for northern cities to speak with one voice forming a new body called Transport for the North. The problem is Sir David not everybody in the north lives in the city regions. We need an elected Council of the whole North to allow the people a chance to formulate policies on rail, the economy, the environment etc.

 

CHESHIRE DYNAMO.

 

Michael Jones will be a happy man following the announcement that Crewe is to be an HS2 hub rather than Stoke. The leader of Cheshire East council takes no prisoners in his drive to bring investment and jobs to his authority. Indeed he may harbour ambitions to lead the whole of Cheshire. He recently called for a unitary authority to be restored for the county. I understand the demand did not go down well with his near namesake Cllr Mike Jones, the leader of Cheshire West and Chester and a leading figure in the Local Government Association. Conservative Party rules may have been breached.

 

It is an unfortunate spat between the Tory politicians but Cheshire is fortunate to have two leaders who, in their different ways bring good leadership to the county.

 

LABOUR PARTY CENTRALISATION.

 

The complaint by the outgoing leader of Labour in Scotland that the party treated her organisation as a branch office had me reflecting on the party’s organisation in the North.

 

When I started as a journalist in the seventies the North West Labour Party was headed up by a fearsome gent by the name of Paul Carmody. He was master of all he surveyed in the region and had no fear of Prime Ministers. He told Harold Wilson where to go when the PM objected to Carmody’s plans to change the boundaries of his Huyton constituency and berated Jim Callaghan for being late for a factory visit. Regional officials should be given back some of those powers as they know what’s going on in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

 

OUTSTANDING BROADCASTING.

 

Brave Huddersfield doctor Geraldine O’Hara is reporting every day on the Today programme about her experiences treating Ebola patients in Africa.

 

Her reporting is of the highest standard as she vividly describes her life amongst those suffering from this dreadful disease. She gives us a full picture of the tragedy but also the rare moments of joy as some patients recover.

 

Although she will not seek it, I hope her reports are acknowledged by multiple awards in due course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT FUTURE FOR LOCAL MEDIA?

CAN LOCAL PAPERS SURVIVE ALONGSIDE THE BBC?

 

Some years ago regional papers managed to block the BBC improving their local websites with more news and video content. They claimed their circulation figures were being hit by the publicly funded broadcaster and this would be made worse if the BBC was allowed to upgrade its local website. The net result has been impoverished BBC local websites, the dropping of plans for a BBC Radio Cheshire and a continuing steep decline in traditional newspaper sales.

 

The threat to the local press came not from the BBC but the availability of on line news and the loss of advertising to the internet. The public who want news of the North were not well served by this ridiculous spat.

 

There are now signs of a truce between the BBC and local papers. On BBC sites in Leeds and Liverpool “Local Live” is a new initiative which signposts stories from non-BBC outlets including the Huddersfield Examiner, Yorkshire Post and the hyper local Leeds site The City Talking.

 

This thaw in relations can be put down to the new BBC Director of News James Harding. He came from the editorship of The Times and as a newspaper man was well placed when it came to handing out the olive branches at a recent conference in Salford. He correctly observed that the BBC and local papers were in the same business of informing people about what was going on in the North and holding people to account.

 

WHO WILL REPORT THE NORTH?

 

Let’s hope that row is over and the BBC initiative to share stories isn’t cynically connected to charter renewal, but we are still left with an uncertain future about how the North is going to be reported. There is still a strong appetite for local news. Five million people tune in each night to look North, Look North West and the other regional BBC programmes.

 

While newspapers are seeing their readership of traditional papers haemorrhage, they claim there is a huge migration to reading stories on line. But what is the quality of the journalism available in profusion at the click of a button. There are certainly less professional journalists around to hold our councillors to account and little money for expensive in depth investigations. The internet gives everyone a chance to be a “citizen journalist” but where does fact end and opinion begin?

The newspaper publishers are in a vicious circle. They sack the journalists to maintain profits. There is less quality news, more readers are lost and the cycle begins again.

 

Who cares if the papers die? I see very few people under 30 actually reading a paper. Alison Gow used to work on the now defunct Liverpool Daily Post. She put the question starkly at the recent Salford conference, “why would you have newspapers when you have better delivery methods by computer, tablet and phone?” The key question is can the newspaper owners make the new model pay? The jury is still out on the limited experiments to make people pay to access content.

 

LOCAL TV?

 

We may be looking at a future of papers exclusively on line, social media, citizen journalists, hyper local TV and social media to report the North. Will local TV be part of this? Franchises were issued across the North over a year ago but the owners are struggling to make the economic model work. Good luck to Bay TV in Liverpool which is run by some excellent people that deserve more backing than they have been getting from local business. We wait to see if the stations in places like Manchester and Lancashire get off the ground.

TO FRACK OR NOT TO FRACK?

THE ENERGY GAP

 

Is the extraction of shale gas part of the answer to our looming energy gap, or a potential environmental disaster in our crowded island?

 

Opposition to fracking is rising as demonstrations from Blackpool in Lancashire to Balcombe in Sussex have shown. The government meanwhile seems determined to press ahead with exploratory licensing despite the fact that we are in the run up to a General Election.

 

The fracking controversy is coming to a head because Britain is facing an energy gap. Coal is a declining source of energy. Old nuclear power stations are being decommissioned and negotiations with energy companies about the strike price for new plants are lengthy. Fears about nuclear power after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl incidents left politicians reluctant to invest in new plants around the turn of the century. UK natural gas production has been declining at 8% a year since 2000. Despite government support for renewables, the fact remains that water, wind and bio-energy account for a small percentage of our energy supply.

 

Then there is Russia. Recent events have increased a desire for the EU and the UK to be less dependent on Vladimir Putin’s gas and coal.

 

FRACKING

 

The process of fracking extracts gas from shale rock by pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into fissures one or two miles down. The gas and waste water then flow up to the surface.

The chemicals used are commercially confidential and that has proved controversial with environmentalists.

 

Estimates vary as to how much shale gas there is under the UK. A recent report commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change suggested that fracking could deliver 25% of the UK’s gas needs by the middle of the next decade. Other experts feel it will take much longer for shale gas to be produced in volume and that cheaper Russian gas will continue to be attractive. Indeed a key question will be the impact of shale gas on household bills.

 

The American experience looms large. There has been a 75% increase in United States natural gas reserves due to fracking. Gas prices have reduced from $12 to $3 per million British thermal units By 2020 the US will be exporting gas. However whilst states like Pennsylvania have embraced fracking, New York maintains a moratorium. Also when comparing the US with the UK, the major issue of population density must be taken into consideration. Another important difference is that American landowners own the mineral rights beneath their land whereas here they are the property of the Crown.

 

Currently there is a promise that £100,000 plus 1% of total revenues will be paid to local communities where fracking takes place. The question is will this be enough to buy off residents who fear groundwater contamination, methane leakage and incessant tanker movements on country lanes? The government insists that a tough regulatory regime will be in place and cite the cautious approach Ministers have taken so far. That includes a moratorium on test drilling when it was suggested that natural seismic movements under Blackpool might have been caused by exploratory work.

 

The conference will be held eight months before the General Election. Some of the most promising shale gas fields are under marginal constituencies in the North and the fracking debate could well become an election issue. Claims for the level of public support for fracking vary widely. An industry commissioned opinion poll claimed recently that opposition was down to 24%. A poll for the Guardian and Nottingham University suggested the nation is split fifty fifty.

 

However enthusiastic national government is to press on with fracking, it is local councillors who have to give planning permission. Some are questioning their expertise to make such crucial decisions.

 

On this crowded island fracking pitches local communities and environmentalists against those with responsibility for keeping the lights on.

THE UNFINISHED MAP OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

 

 

Forty years ago this week local government boundaries across the North were ripped up in a major reform of how we are governed locally. It was meant to herald a more efficient system of administration with functions being carried out at an appropriate level reflecting communities that people could identify with.

 

In fact the last forty years has seen continued tinkering with the system, the scrapping and then the reinventing of city regions and, in some areas, a refusal of people to come to terms with the 1974 settlement. There is still much to do.

 

In 1974 local government across the north consisted of a patchwork of county boroughs covering the main population centres with a series of small urban and rural councils around them with boundaries that did not reflect the urban expansion since the Second World War.

 

In 1969 very wise man called Lord Redcliffe-Maud proposed that most people should have one tier of local government. His idea was rejected but it remains the obvious solution to this day. Instead the Heath government decided to create metropolitan councils for West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. They dealt with transport, police, fire and structural planning whilst metropolitan districts handled schools, housing, social services and collected the rates.

 

The old shire counties had chunks taken out of them. Yorkshire lost Saddleworth to Oldham and Todmorden to Lancashire. The Saddleworth White Rose Society still campaigns for the old historic boundary. Cheshire lost Wirral to Merseyside. Lancashire,who’s southern border had been the Mersey, lost communities from Stretford and Whiston and Ashton and Droylesden to the mets and in the North the Furness area to Cumbria. Perhaps most contentious was the incorporation of Southport into Merseyside. A Southport Party campaigning to return the resort to Lancashire has enjoyed poll success in Sefton Council elections.

 

 

 

Cities like Manchester were never happy with an upper tier authority over them and shed few tears when the metropolitan counties became collateral damage in a war between Margaret Thatcher and Ken Livingstone, leader of the Greater London Council in the mid 1980s.

 

There was turbulence in the shire counties too. In Lancashire, Blackpool and Blackburn became all purpose authorities in 1998. It was typical of the piecemeal nature of local government reform in recent decades. Why wasn’t Preston given unitary status? Why have 12 district councils in Lancashire and yet in 2009 reduce the number of councils in Cheshire to two?

 

There was a moment of hope that a real overall coherent vision would be given to all this when John Prescott proposed regional assemblies to democratise the work of the Regional Development Agencies. It would have required unitary local government throughout the North, reducing the number of politicians not increasing them as critics of Prescott mislead people into believing.

 

Prescott was replaced by the current Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles who vowed to oppose any more reorganisation. In fact under the current government we have seem the rise of Combined Authorities in Greater Manchester and soon in Merseyside and West Yorkshire. They are reinventions of the metropolitan councils of 1974 recognising that there is a need for strategic thinking in the mets.

 

In Greater Manchester the antagonisms of 1974-86 have been avoided. The jury is still out elsewhere particularly in the Liverpool City Region.

 

A plethora of initiatives have been launched by this government. Local Enterprise Partnerships, elected mayors, City Deals etc. It is a confusing mess which people don’t understand and have little democratic control over.

 

Forty years on from the reform of 1974 we await the government with the guts to override petty local politics and introduce root and branch reform of our constitution from the House of Lords to parish council.