Reacting to Durham County Council’s announcement that Cllr Amanda Hopgood has sent a letter to the Secretary of State to confirm in principle, it is to join the LA6 devolution deal with the other local authorities in the North East, County Durham Labour Leader Carl Marshall said:
“In a lengthy list of shameful regressive decisions from the shambolic Coalition running Durham County Council, this is perhaps the worst.
“County Durham had within our grasp, a once in as generation opportunity to become masters of our own destiny, set our own priorities, address the decline of public services as this Tory government – enabled by LibDems – drained over quarter of a billion pounds from our budget…but no, just like the decision to reject the regeneration of Aykley Heads to attract business, this Coalition attaches yet another enormous anchor to the growth prospects of our county.
“Labour fervently backed the county deal. We asked residents, and of 623 respondents, 84% said they wanted a county deal. Once again, residents are not just ignored by the Coalition, they didn’t even give them any of the options.
“The other six authorities in the North East devolution deal have already stated that County Durham’s delaying and dithering means it will miss out on over £140m in public transport funding – money that we would have received had we gone it alone!
“What has this Coalition given County Durham since coming to power 18 months ago? A state of the art HQ that could be saving the council £1m a year in energy costs stands empty gathering dust, they shelved plans to create 6,000 jobs in the heart of the county and they’ve created a £34m black hole in our finances that has County Durham on the brink of bankruptcy – like this woeful Tory Government, it’s time to get these charlatans out before they do any damage we can’t repair.”