'LET'S MAKE THE BOROUGH SPECIAL'

12 SEPTEMBER 2001

South Tyneside has never been the conference capital of the world, but this week we have had distinguished visitors. The annual meeting of the Coalfields Communities Campaign is a prestige event for an organisation representing some 80 local authorities around Britain. The conference is part speeches, led by people like cabinet minister Stephen Byers, but also local site visits to see coalfield regeneration.

It seems incredible that in the 13 years after the miners' strike, 170 000 mining jobs were cut across Britain. The closure of Westoe, movingly told in Westoe: The Last Pit on the Tyne, was the end of an era. There are now 3.7 million people living in the ex-coalfields, and only 10 000 miners in Britain.

The 1998 report of the Coalfields Task Force said: "There is nowhere else like the coalfields. They have a unique combination of concentrated joblessness, physical isolation, poor infrastructure and severe health problems." But since that landmark report, and thanks in significant part to the efforts of the Coalfields Communities Campaign, there has been a real shift by government.

The Government will spend £350 million over ten years on the infrastructure of regeneration. This includes the development of the Westoe site. £50m has been committed for the independent Coalfields Regeneration Trust to fund voluntary organisations running credit unions, resource centres and training schemes with a further £45 million on the way. They have funded West Harton Church Action, among others, in South Tyneside. And while compensation for ex-miners and their families for lung and other diseases is painfully slow, over £4bn of public money is available.

My argument to the conference is that it is time to match the campaign for justice from the government with 'regeneration from within'. I see three challenges as absolutely key.

First, we need to ensure that the mainstream services delivered by dedicated public servants are of the highest quality - above average to counter the disadvantages that too many residents face. With new leadership in the Borough's education department, we need to go on and achieve for our secondary schools the excellent results now reached by our primary schools. Government is going to have to back new ideas that help tackle the problems children face; but it is up to us to come up with the ideas.

Second, we need to show local people that change will bring positive benefit. Regeneration from within is built on hope, and that is built on achievement. So we need to work to ensure that when the work starts on the 600 new houses, the community centre and the school on the Westoe site, the sons and daughters of miners, and ex-miners themselves, get the benefit of the work that is there to be won.

Finally, we need to agree on a clear local vision that unites our efforts. The evidence from around the world as well as our own back yard is that towns and cities need to establish a unique selling point for themselves, to give focus and energy to their efforts at regeneration. In the 20th century, that unique selling point was coal; in the future, it is going to be around what we help companies make, and whether we can help people learn and think, and what services we offer.

I am confident we can achieve regeneration because South Tyneside has a lot to offer. My wife and I are now two of the newest recruits to the Borough. They say buying a house is a major cause of divorce and heartache. But it's over and we are pleased.

When people ask me why we have chosen to have a house here, I have a simple answer: I promised to do so, and it is a great place. We have many special things: the river and the sea, the community, the College, the small firms. Now we have to build on them. I'm looking forward to working to build a community where people want to live, work, shop and spend their leisure time. And let's have a great debate about how we are going to make ourselves special.