Eyes & Ears 21.08.26

Prime Minister Andy Burnham understandably got the headlines for his hopeful words on the dualling of the A1 this week.

This has been a hot topic for decades but I don’t think we should raise our hopes too high just yet - although there is something refreshing about the way he says ‘no’.

It was interesting to contrast the local and national reaction to two other stories this week.

The influential Adam Smith Institute suggested setting up defence enterprise zones in the North East to create thousands of jobs and recreate the success of attracting Nissan in the 80s - a well-argued case which attracted barely a ripple of interest from the national media.

Then there’s the decision to take powers over regional growth away from the Treasury and into the hands of the new No 10 North. The likes of the Telegraph and Times were all over that but it barely registered with the local media - despite the fact that it could have a considerable upside for regions like ours.

Levelling up anyone?

Just when fans of Newcastle United were beginning to despair about the ambitions of the club’s owners, there came a massive statement of intent yesterday with the announcement of a world-class training complex to be built near Newcastle International Airport (on land owned by former chairman Sir John Hall).

In terms of the “hidden arms race of elite football”, it puts Newcastle just behind Real Madrid and way ahead of PSG, Manchester City and Bayern Munich. I was also taken by the club’s other considerations: “We will preserve and enhance a historic estate, its biodiversity and wildlife habitats, and be a great neighbour.”

Also in this edition, why the heatwaves were too much for our fridges and freezers, what climate change means for our food supplies, and how a switch to electric buses will be good news for our youngsters.

Brian Aitken
Editor

The Prime Minister’s ‘listening tour’ of the country took him to the North East on Wednesday where his primary objective was to talk about homelessness. Local Democracy Reporter Dan Holland took the opportunity, however, to ask about the dualling of the A1.

Now, Andy Burnham was never going to stand up in the North East and say it’s not worth it or it can’t happen, but his response gave at least some hope for the upgrading of the 13 miles between Morpeth and Ellingham where six people have lost their lives recently.

“The A1 is an issue that I am not going to conveniently forget because I am now in the position I am in,” he told Dan. “I have said to Kim (McGuinness) we will make devolution work in a way that is right for people in the North East, there is more power coming to the North East of England, that is a commitment and No 10 North will be driving these changes with Kim. For instance, on that issue, looking to see if there is an alternative way we can put a funding package together.”

‘Alternative way’ means the money is not there, but he’s at least open to ways of finding it. Mayor McGuinness said later: “We are hearing encouraging noises coming out of government and I am going to get on with that urgently because it needs to happen.”

Back to homelessness. The PM, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner and North East Mayor Kim McGuinness visited a Changing Lives supported accommodation service in Newcastle.

Burnham announced a plan for every person sleeping rough in England to be offered a route off the streets by Christmas and pledged to donate 15% of his prime ministerial salary to homelessness charities. This is on top of the 15% of his MP salary he already gives to local causes in his Makerfield constituency.

“I wouldn't want to ask anybody to do anything that I’m not prepared to do,” he told reporters.

Changing Lives chief executive Stephen Bell took to LinkedIn to say the visit was an endorsement for the charity’s staff and volunteers - and also a day which gave him hope for the future after hearing what senior politicians had to say about their ambitions to eradicate rough sleeping (full disclosure: I used to work for Changing Lives and have seen the brilliant work that Stephen and his team do to help the most vulnerable people every single day).

The new No 10 North is to take on responsibility for economic growth in a “huge transfer of power” away from the Treasury. This will allow Whitehall to focus on controlling the public finances, Prime Minister Andy Burnham told The Times.

“There’s a job to be done around control of public finances. It’s just the dual job of growth and control of public finances that sometimes clouds the growth mission. And particularly having No 10 leading on that growth mission means you’ve got maximum power to unlock the blockages where they exist in the wider Whitehall system.”

There will have been countless times over the years where representatives of the North East will have prepared a sound business case for investment only to despair at the logic of the Treasury’s rejection. The A1 is a case in point. We may well be about to enter a new era (he said optimistically).

With Andy Burnham in listening mode, the Adam Smith Institute is calling for the creation of defence enterprise zones in the North East to recreate the success of Nissan in Sunderland.

The plan proposes fast-tracked planning under a single governing authority alongside full factory write-offs, zero-rated business rates, reduced NI and discounted energy bills. And it has identified five publicly owned sites – High Hanning, Quarrington Hill, High Pittington, Blaydon Quarry, and Newburn Riverside.

The report, which carries a foreword by Sir David Harrison, the founder of True Potential, says the North East’s low land prices, existing 110,000-strong manufacturing workforce, and industrial heritage make it well-suited to the scheme. The right-leaning free market think tank says that the areas would be served by one large anchor tenant that would stimulate growth in local supply chains.

Sunderland Council leader Chris Eynon said: “This is a very innovative idea to help supercharge our manufacturing base along with supporting the UK defence industry within our region.”

With three of Newcastle United’s best players being snapped up by Barcelona, Arsenal and Spurs this summer, fans can be excused for being worried about what the season ahead might hold - the first game is against Liverpool on Sunday, by the way

But yesterday came positive news of the club’s ambitions when it was announced it has agreed to build a £190m training ground on 260 acres of land at the Woolsington Hall estate owned, ironically, by former chairman Sir John Hall and close to the city’s airport. It is subject to planning approval, of course, but can you imagine the reaction if any councillor voted against the application.

As a statement of intent, it is a massive statement.

Chief executive David Hopkinson said: “Our proposed performance complex will create the world’s best performance environment for our teams. We’ll develop purpose-built facilities that are geared towards developing sustainable success in the future, where players, coaches and staff can perform at their very best every day.

“We will be submitting a detailed planning application that not only demonstrates our vision, but also how we will preserve and enhance a historic estate, its biodiversity and wildlife habitats, and how we’ll be a great neighbour.”

A formal planning application for the new elite performance facility and academy is expected to be submitted in early 2027, with a view to the men’s first team moving in for the 2029-30 campaign.

If you want an indication of the world that Newcastle United are about to enter, you can read this article in sportsrender.com which talks about the “hidden arms race of elite football”.

“Modern football is decided far from the spotlight - inside massive training complexes that look more like futuristic cities than sports facilities. These are places where players live, recover, learn, and evolve. Not just grass pitches - but sports science labs, performance data centres, recovery technology, and carefully designed architecture built for one purpose: winning.”

Real Madrid’s Valdebebas complex is the biggest training facility, spanning nearly 120 hectares. Newcastle’s Woolsington site is not far behind at 105 hectares - and that’s comfortably bigger than PSG (59 hectares), Manchester City (32 hectares), Bayern Munich (30 hectares) and Spurs, which is a similar size to Bayern’s but includes an organic garden and orchard to supply the club’s chefs with home-grown food.

Sunderland councillor Glen Gibbins has been suspended by Reform pending the outcome of a court case after he was charged with making a grossly offensive comment on social media about Nigerians. Gibbins was due to appear at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court today.

Durham councillor Ian Catchpole says he has resigned from Reform and will sit as an Independent, although the party said his resignation “came in the middle of an internal review into the unauthorised disclosure of private group material to individuals outside the party”, with the whip removed from him pending the outcome.

A by-election will be held in Northumberland after Councillor John Allen failed to attend a meeting for six months. He was expelled from the party after being accused of making comments online that he wanted to shoot then Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

There has been a massive increase in the number of e-bikes being seized by police forces across the country. None more so than in Northumbria where seizures almost tripled from 90 in 2024-25 to 262 in 2025-26.

Carlisle Labour MP Julie Minns, who has been campaigning for a ban on sales of illegal e-bikes and conversion kits, said they were the “perfect accessory to phone theft, mugging and drug dealing” and a danger to motorists and pedestrians.

Diesel buses running through an “air pollution hotspot” are to be replaced by an all-electric service on the Coast Road between Newcastle and North Tyneside. The news comes in the same week that a landmark study of 3,400 youngsters published in The Lancet Public Health found that the introduction of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone is linked to improved lung growth in children.

A consequence of our long hot summer is that fridges and freezers have been giving up the ghost at a higher rate than normal - at a time when there are fewer specialist centres that can deal with their disposal.

Many councils have suspended their white goods collections because of the lack of storage space. North Tyneside has become the first in the region to do so with fears that this could lead to an increase in fly-tipping.

Decisions, decisions

Tynemouth’s North Pier only opened a week ago after restoration work but has had to close again after vandals caused £20,000 of damage. Newcastle City Council is looking to scrap a Late Night Levy which licensed premises have had to pay since 2013. Newcastle and Liverpool are the only councils outside London to impose the charge. Rail services between Newcastle and Edinburgh are to be disrupted for three weekends in a row to renew track and upgrade services. Most operators will run buses between Morpeth and Dunbar during September 19-20 and 26-27 and October 3-4. A petition signed by 2,410 people calling for North Tyneside Council to keep the High Borrans outdoor education centre in the Lake District open will be discussed at next month’s full council meeting. A spokesperson for the council said campaigners were “searching for an answer that may never arrive”. Initial investigations into the pollution at Blyth beach suggests creosote contamination, reports the Environment Agency. Elgin Energy has submitted plans to Darlington Borough Council for a solar farm in Hurworth Moor which could generate enough renewable electricity to power up to 16,400 homes. Newcastle councillors will decide today on a plan to knock down Hadrian House in the city centre and replace the disused office block with a 21-storey accommodation complex for Northumbria University students.

The final three sites in North East Mayor Kim McGuinness’s £71m Brownfield Housing Fund - Netherton Lane in Northumberland, Derwentwater Court in Gateshead and Marden Residents Association in North Tyneside – will unlock 38 new homes for social rent.

This brings the total homes unlocked through funding allocated by the mayor to more than 4,000, with more than 620 new homes already completed and others being built.

“Everyone in the North East deserves a safe, secure, and genuinely affordable place to call home,” the mayor said. “But for too many people, that simply isn’t the reality today. That’s why I’ve made it a priority to build more affordable homes, so families aren’t priced out of their communities and can put down roots close to jobs, schools and the people they care about.”

South African Brett Griffiths has been appointed to take over from Paul McEldon as CEO of the North East BIC, one of the region’s largest business support and flexible workspace providers. He takes up the position on October 1. Fruit and veg wholesaler JR Holland has been bought by San Francisco-based GrubMarket - the technology group’s first UK acquisition. The JR Holland name and Team Valley-based management team will remain. Power Tool World, which operates from two sites in Newton Aycliffe is expanding with the addition of a third warehouse and an investment in automation. Newcastle biotech firm BSF Enterprise, which pioneers lab-grown leather, has agreed a strategic partnership with German consulting firm Schakau Managementberatung to help commercialise its product range. Ramside Estates has acquired Select Telecom, a long-standing supplier to the hospitality group which sees reliable connectivity as fundamental to all areas of its operations. Tekmar has secured a €1m contract to design and manufacture concrete protection and stabilisation products to safeguard cables across a major European windfarm.

You know what, I’m not even going to tell you about this ad. It doesn’t matter who made it. Just watch it and let it change your mood. Trust me.

Wildfires, water shortages and heatwave after heatwave. Climate change got very real this summer.

The changing climate is having a profound effect on Britain’s food supply, as Paul Mason writes in his alarming article in The New World.

He quotes a food company’s warning that this year, the UK’s wheat yields have “plummeted”, and we are on track for “one of the worst harvests on record”. Potato prices are up 40%. Lettuce has almost doubled. Fertiliser prices have also spiked due to the closure of the strait of Hormuz, meaning food inflation this year is set for 6%. Climate change is about to deliver a shock to our food production system, made worse by poor policy decisions.

That has to change, he writes. “Britain needs to develop an all-new way of feeding itself and to make its existing systems more resistant to this kind of punishing heatwave – because we know it will happen again.”

Hard to tell if this is AI generated or not

You can take the conclusion of a survey and present the same ‘one-fact story’ in two different ways. The alternative here would be ‘Two thirds of Britons say Harry and Meghan should move back to UK - or don’t care if they do’.