Anderson quits Northern Powerhouse Partnership
Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson has quit George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse Partnership, accusing the current Chancellor Philip Hammond of being “determined to poison and kill off” his predecessor’s legacy.
Mayor Anderson has resigned from his position at the NPP, set up by George Osborne in 2016 as “a voice of business and civic leaders” across the North.
In a statement to the BBC, Anderson said: “There are several bodies in the north, such as the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and Transport for the North providing government with this evidence but I no longer see the point of being a part of these bodies, set up by a government which isn’t prepared to listen to them.”
Anderson’s move follows reports in The Times that the Government had withdrawn an offer to fund a line linking Liverpool to HS2, despite promising money was “in the bag” prior to October’s Budget.
The mayor had also previously blamed the lack of HS2 connectivity for Liverpool losing out on its bid to be the new home of Channel 4, a decision which he branded “disappointing and hypocritical”.
“The current transport policy for the north is negatively impacting on the fortunes of cities like Liverpool and the potential to grow its economy, which will be even more important to the UK economy post-Brexit,” he said.
The Current Chancellor Hammond, is determined to poison and kill off the George Osborne legacy. Treasury games at play. Transport Minister to weak to force issue of rail connectivity.
Liverpool mayor quits Northern Powerhouse Partnership – BBC News https://t.co/9oQn8tZUSk
— Joe Anderson (@mayor_anderson) December 9, 2018
Other political representatives on the board include Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council and Cllr Julie Dore, leader of Sheffield City Council.
From the private sector, Mace’s Mark Reynolds, Chris Oglesby of Bruntwood, and Jonathan Moore of Arcadis also sit on the board.
George Osborne, Northern Powerhouse Partnership chair: “I want to thank Joe for his big contribution to our Northern Powerhouse Partnership. I understand his frustration with the Government over the Northern Powerhouse agenda, especially its lack of vision for high speed rail. It’s precisely why we need our Northern Powerhouse Partnership to be as strong and as active as it is, and will continue to be.”
Sheffield Council leader Dore added: “I will be remaining on Northern Powerhouse Partnership’s Board because as the North we must continue to make the case for what is right for our places, like my own city and the wider Sheffield City Region, because the Northern Powerhouse is a big idea with big benefits if we are supported by government to make the right investments.
“Transport connectivity to Manchester and Manchester Airport is hanging in the balance and I still have significant points of disagreement where promises risk being broken entirely. What industry can achieve working together with us can be shown by the AMRC and the investments by Boeing and McLaren in Rotherham. From building Small Modular Reactors in nuclear to leading the world in work based skills, my ambition is for Sheffield and the North to succeed.
“The Government backed us when I signed our devolution deal with them; we all need to play our part to make sure government or anyone else do not damage the prospects our young people and the future generations here in the North deserve.”
A retrograde step by a retrograde “leader”.
Simple way for the actual local-leader, Steve Rotherham to “kill off” “poisonous” Anderson would be for Rotherham to just take his place on the NP Partnership. Would show Anderson up for the silly and parochial joke that he is.
By Chip Shop Glands
Not a fan of Anderson, but he’s right isn’t he?
Or as everyone around here is saying “Northern Powerhouse, my @rse”!
By MancLad
Pinnacle, North Point Global & Primesite have done for the Northern Powerhouse
By Carl
“Crossrail delay: £1.4bn bailout as autumn 2019 launch delayed”
From the BBC website. Today.
By MP3
Northern flower house more like it – good on him..
By Dan
Osborne was great for the North. The worse thing to come from Brexit was losing Cameron and Osborne, who ere actually doing a good job.
By PDM
I agree with PDM. I voted Conservative in 2015 because of the NP initiative by Osborne. I live in a seat that was lost to Labour in May’s botched election, so it shows how this resonated with intelligent people. If Osborne had replaced Cameron eventually, this would have been a much better outcome than a London Labour party in charge, or this current embarrassing debacle. Osborne does care about the North and particularly Manchester. This situation with underfunding and shocking prejudice is here for many decades to come whoever replaces May I am afraid. In ten years time we will still be riding around on their cast offs.
By Elephant
It’s now a Northern Outhouse and we have a Government that clearly has had its mind on other matters since June 2016.Its a shame that the momentum and potential rebalancing North/South looks to have been kicked into the long grass.
By taxed
It does seems curious. The Northern Powerhouse was patently a project to a create a London of the North based in Manchester. Using the power of agglomeration to strip life and opportunity from surrounding towns and cities – most notably Liverpool. Anderson was a signed up member to Osbourne’s Liverpool-killing project. And now he resigns from from Osbourne’s think-tank because he claims, the current Chancellor (Hammond) is not honouring Osbourne’s promise to destroy the city Anderson claims to represent. Odd.
By Denby
Also curious that Anderson name checks Transport for The North as another organisation he intends to resign from, even though he is not actually a member. That takes some brass neck.
By Denby
Yes Denby, Anderson has resigned from George Osborne’s lobby group that was set up by Osborne after he was sacked by Theresa May to pressure the government to continue Osborne’s Manchester-focussed Northern Powerhouse project saying it was set up by the government! The man is very confused or lying. I can believe both. As you say Osborne’s NPP both backed the current version of HS2, bypassing Liverpool and lobbied for the Leeds-Manchester stretch of HS3 to be prioritised over Manchester to Liverpool, thus disadvantaging Liverpool again. And with Anderson on the board. Clearly he was too thick or notice or didn’t care. Again, I could believe both. Despite being leader of Liverpool City council for eight and a half years he doesn’t seem to have grasped the basics of how local and regional bodies work, which are official and which are not. As you say, Anderson is ludicrously saying he’s going to pull out of the statutory regional transport executive, TfN, even though his council is not a member of it. Instead the combined authority is one of its constituent bodies and is carrying on working with TfN on plans for NPL in which we have been promised by Steve Rotheram and Andy Burnham the Manchester to Liverpool section of NPR will be built first this giving Liverpool a direction connection to the HS2 mainline. Hopefully Anderson will be ignored as people are by now used to his bizarre outbursts and publicity stunts (reporting Everton to the Metropolitan police when they sold one of his favourite players for example). But if not he is putting Liverpool’s chances of getting a decent outcome out of HS2 and NPR at risk. And all just to get himself in the papers again and pretend he is still relevant after (thank God) he lost out to Rotheram to be metro mayor. The dumb Sunday Times journalist who broke this story should have realised that transport is not even Anderson’s remit, it comes under the metro mayor. He interviewed Burnham, why didn’t he interview Rotheram as well? As well as Anderson’s usual attention-seeking and selfishness motivations I wonder if other agendas are at play here. Who contacted the ST to begin with and why was Anderson pulled into it rather than the man who is actually in charge of metropolitan transport in the city region, the metro mayor who appears to be well informed about local transport plans and, working with his friend Burnham, has done a good job in getting Liverpool’s needs incorporated into TfL’s plans.
By Brumby
I meet up with an NPP senior official recently at a transport event, I am afraid the situation is still pretty fluid and nothing is guaranteed,we are proposing a transport solution, which they did not have any power to implement, they are very limited.
It’s pity. Joe is just waking up to this fact and the realisation a lot of empty promises have been made,maybe if he had been more committed to Liverpool and HS2 originally, things may have been different, over to Steve Rotheram now.
By Man on bicycle
A serious error this by Joe. Hands initiative to his nemesis Rotherham, who’s hardly pulled up any trees thus far. Manchester and Sheffield still at the table but not Liverpool. Guess where the crumbs will land? Bad lack of leadership from Joe on this. Fine having his ego stroked with an OBE and place at the top table with Tories like O’Neill and Osborne, but then flees the scene when his city needs a voice more than ever. Gesture politics at its worst.
By John Smith
That a £7bn pot, of which £3bn would be spent for Greater Liverpool, was pulled at the last moment for timing reasons shows that the city’s real mayor has achieved far more in the past year than has been managed in the past decade.
If only he’d been supported we could have been looking at Channel 4 and the Commonwealth Games.
Hopefully the current borough labour party appointee will be ignored, as the grown ups continue to talk. The NPP is merely a pressure group, and not one – as others have observed – that represents Liverpool’s interests.
If only Liverpool had a functioning media!
By Mike