To think that Great Britain is far more than just the south east

[ReallyTired]

London house prices are booming, but a lot of places in the North of England are in the doldrums when it comes to employment. I feel that only lip service has been paid to the regeneration of Newcastle.

We don't need more houses in london or the south east while houses in Newcaste and Salford stand empty. We need to regenerate these cities so that people choose to live there.

[ReallyTired]

If an alien watched the news then they would never realise that England extended beyond Watford. I feel that everything about England is far too london centric. We need to increase the wealth of all regions of England.

[OttilieKnackered]

Equally, London is not the whole of the South East...

[Bowlersarm]

Quite agree. Wish they wouldn't keep talking about building swathes of houses in the south east. It's way too crowded down here.

[WorraLiberty]

I agree, apart from the bit where you said 'We don't need more houses in london or the south east', because we really do...even if houses in Newcastle and Salford are standing empty.

There's no point in telling someone who works in London or the South East, to give up their job and move to Newcastle.

[LaurieFairyCake]

With modern communications they should just move parts of govt out round the country - just like they put the dvla in Swansea

But I have to disagree that it's crowded - I'm in Herts and there's masses of fields we could build on

I'm really in favour of house building as it will gradually reduce house prices, regenerate the economy, and provide jobs.

Just build houses.

[Chocotrekkie]

The whole thing is a vicious circle.

Unemployment in some areas is really high. There are very few employers. Jobs tend to be minimum wage levels. So the people with good skills/education move to more prosperous areas and get a good job there. They need to live somewhere so buy a house/rent from someone else who has bought the house.

So the area is left with people with lower employability skills either not working or on min.

So when a large employer comes along they have to decide on area 1 with the high skills base, economically vibrant which leads to nice amenities or area 2 - lower skills, poor area.

The only way to change it is to attract business to these areas. I think parliament moving from London to somewhere like Newcastle would be a good start. Move all the major gov depts to other cities/towns. Encourage companies to move their offices- free rent for 5 years etc.

It will never happen - so until then houses will be built where they are needed.

[TucsonGirl]

The public sector needs to be moved out of London, entirely. Including the national government. There's absolutely no reason for it to be there. And it shouldn't all be moved to Manchester either.

[Pipbin]

I also hate when they only mention the county on the news. 'A village in Dorset, Cornwall, North Yorkshire etc......'
Not London seems to be a mystery to some people. There was a poster a while back who seemed to think that everywhere outside London was a village.

[Roseformeplease]

Or indeed that Great Britain extended beyond England....

[TucsonGirl]

I sometimes think London should become an independent city state and the UK/England should pick another capital.

[Munchmallow]

Quite, Roseformeplease

And yes Pipbin - Scotland doesn't have towns or cities either. Love the map

[ILoveCoreyHaim]

I'm In Newcastle and there's loads of house building going on in my town and another 2600 going up soon on old industrial land

[tallulah]

All those suggesting the public sector be moved out of London & the SE, they have been, for the last 7 years at least. Not much fun for hundreds/ thousands of public sector workers faced with redundancy or having to relocate.

[ReallyTired]

The only place that gets snow is London where a few centimetres causes grid lock.

"So the area is left with people with lower employability skills either not working or on min."

I am sure there must be intelligent people in Newcastle who could do skilled graduate jobs. Newcastle has two universities. In fact the North of England has several high quality universities.

Its not just parliment, but the stock exchange is the financial centre of London. A lot of banks have their head quarters in London.

[meditrina]

i've just has a look. The population of London is 8.3 million. That's considerably more than Scotland at about 5.2 million.

So unsurprising that it gets a bit more attention.

And of course, saying something is happening 'in London' is just as unspecific as saying "happened in a village Devon" not least because as London contains a number of county-sized boroughs.

[ReallyTired]

"l those suggesting the public sector be moved out of London & the SE, they have been, for the last 7 years at least. Not much fun for hundreds/ thousands of public sector workers faced with redundancy or having to relocate."

Reduncancy and re location is a fact of life in the private sector. In fact quite a lot of the civil service has already been moved out of London already. Ie the Met Office is in exeter, the national statistics office is in newport and the DVLA is in Swansea.

[ReallyTired]

"i've just has a look. The population of London is 8.3 million. That's considerably more than Scotland at about 5.2 million."

The population of the UK is 60 million. There are plenty of people who live in the UK. but don't live in scotland or London.

[AgaPanthers]

Clearly we do need more housing in the south east, and we probably don't need it in the north and Wales, because prices are exploding in the south east and still falling in other areas.

Basic economics really.

That we need more investment out of London is true, but that doesn't meant that the people around London should be forced to pay half a million quid to live in a shitty flat to compensate.

[smokepole]

I certainly don't believe that, the life my Brother has in Cheshire East is to be envied . The perception of many narrow minded people is quite staggering. A lot of my friends still believe the North begins at Hendon.

The truth is where I live in south kent is a bit of a "Shit Hole" yet friends see themselves as superior to "Northerners".

[gamescompendium]

When talking about the Pfizer-AstraZeneca story Paul Nurse said AZ were investing in lots of new jobs in Cambridge. Emm, no, they are shutting down their Cheshire base and moving south. When Boris Johnson spoke aboutthe research triangle (London, Oxford and Cambridge) the Today programme took a 5 second soundbite from a representative from a NE business association where they were allowed to say 'we have technology jobs in the NE' before the story went back to the south.

If people in the south don't know there actually are jobs in the north then they are never going to look for them or apply for them. But on the other hand, you ask anyone working for the company I work for (very famous worldwide chemical company) if they would move to our competitors inn the south everyone laughs. We're all sitting here in our affordable 4 bedroom detached houses with good schools and hospitals. Why would I go somewhere where everything is more expensive and worse?

[Wooodpecker]

The majority of the countries wealth is made in London so it will always be considered more important in relation to news stories. I agree the wealth should be spread more evenly but how that happens is a different story.

[Pipbin]

Munch. Scotland is either heather and glens with small villages like the Wicker Man or drug slums like train spotting. Nothing else.

[ILoveCoreyHaim]

Employment at in Newcastle is terrible, i have recently found employment after being unemployed. I gave up work to be a SAHM for 5 years, nothing great just a min wage job to tide me over. My dad works in the NHS up here and he said 100s of graduates applied for a job in his office manning the phone. I also noticed the difference in qualifications which are now asked for in min wage jobs. Cleaning, they want you to have a qualification. Shop work, 4GCSEs C and above. General office jobs and NVQ L3.

[Pipbin]

I also get annoyed at the way we are all meant to know that some places are in London.

[LaurieFairyCake]

There's still loads of the public sector they could move out of London though.

There's plenty of folk who'd be willing to relocate for £150k 4-bed detached houses.