More on the Combined Authority interim plan

More on the Combined Authority interim plan

More on Combined authority interim plan – what is missing?

I read over my last blog and realized that something really important is missing from the plan. There is a discussion  of defense industries  and offshore wind but no mention of shipbuilding. The Victorians left us a legacy of massive estuarine infrastructure on the Tyne and Wear which enabled shipbuilding and ship repair but no  notion that this could be brought back into use for either or both of building warships and offshore marine construction. The wretched Tyne and Wear Urban Development Corporation systematically destroyed vital deep water fronting sites for industrial use by littering them with, to quote a Sunderland Conservative Councillor of the time,  little boxes of houses and retail uses. In a context of global insecurity and global warming we will probably need to bring those sites back to industrial use.  I realize that even I – who spent a lot of time opposing the UDC – had lost sight of this but I guess the Combined Authority bairns don’t even remember it.