Keep up to date with all the big politics stories in the North with the daily Northern Agenda newsletter.
You can receive the Northern Agenda newsletter direct to your inbox every week day by signing up right here.
Here is today's Northern Agenda:
By ROB PARSONS - July 4 2022
For years, if not decades, policy-makers in the North's most desirable tourist locations have wrestled with how to stop the rise in second homes and holiday lets from damaging the communities they represent.
In areas like the Yorkshire Dales, Lake District and rural Northumberland high demand for second homes is increasing the strain on an already limited housing stock and forcing out young families, putting the future sustainability of towns and villages at risk.
The Government published its Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill in May, including more options for council tax premiums to be introduced on empty properties and second homes nationally.
But as North Yorkshire leaders are first out of the blocks by unveiling plans to double the council tax charge on second homes , some critics fear the move could reduce payments to the public purse while also failing to free up properties for local residents.
North Yorkshire County Council has said the proposal to introduce a 100% council tax premium to all second homes in the county from April 2024 will depend on the government passing legislation in the coming months.
The move would double an average band D council tax charge for second home owners to more than £4,100 in some of the most heavily affected areas of the county, writes Local Democracy Reporter Stuart Minting .
Announcing the proposal, the authority stated it had potential to generate an annual £14m windfall to fund services and affordable housing schemes. Upper Dales councillor Yvonne Peacock, whose drive to introduce a council tax premium on second homes was rejected by Richmondshire District Council four years ago, said she was “absolutely delighted” by the county council’s proposal.
A report to the council’s executive, which considers the proposal tomorrow , warns that numerous concerns have been raised whether the second homes premium might encourage council tax premium avoidance, with owners transferring properties to holiday lets to qualify for discounted business rates.
County council Independent group leader Councillor Stuart Parsons described the move as “one of the stupidest suggestions the Tories have ever come up with”, adding it would cause more damage than good as there would be “so many loopholes people could dodge out of paying the premium as they wish”.
John Amsden, chairman of planning in Richmondshire district, said while he welcomed action, the proposed premium would be “a non-starter unless you can pin a property’s ownership down”.
Inside Manchester city centre's baby boom
Meanwhile the centre of Manchester seems to have a very contrasting issue to contend with. The latest Census data — taken in 2021 — has revealed that across the city, the largest growth was in the 10-14-year-old band, with 9,515 more youngsters compared with a decade earlier.
The surge in younger residents is a trend that’s been growing over the last few years, according to officials on the ground, as Ethan Davies writes for the Manchester Evening News.
Such is the demand for services, planning permission was granted last week for a new primary school in Deansgate, which had been in the works since 2020. Pupils are expected to walk through Crown Street School’s gates for the first time in 2024.
Talking about the growth in the number of families in town, Councillor Marcus Johns, who represents the Deansgate ward, said: “People get pregnant and have babies. You do often see people like that who will move on, not everyone will stay, maybe they will move on when looking for schools. That’s why we pressed for the school. People were saying they did not have the right facilities."
With a trend emerging, the Manchester Evening News spoke to several families to find out how parents are adapting to city centre life. Read the full piece here .
Sheffield council chief saga 'should have been settled much quicker'
Sheffield City Council chief executive Kate Josephs is back in her job after being caught up in the Partygate affair over her lockdown leaving drinks at her previous job as head of the Government’s Covid taskforce.
But did it really need to take five months of secretive deliberations and investigations by the council - during which Mr Josephs was on paid leave - before it was announced she would be allowed to return to work with a written warning?
Local Democracy Reporter Molly Williams has spoken to members of Sheffield Council’s cross-party committee that made the decision as they broke their silence on the controversy.
When asked if it really needed to go on for as long as it did, Douglas Johnson, leader of the Sheffield Green Party, said: “No. As with any staff matter, I would have preferred it to be dealt with as speedily as possible and certainly far more quickly than the five months that it took.”
Meanwhile Richard Penn - the chief executive of Bradford City Council for nine years - was revealed as the person appointed to lead an independent investigation into the local impact of the scandal.
He was selected by Ms Josephs from a list of three names provided by the Joint Negotiating Committee’s National Joint Secretaries, with the three options chosen on a “taxi rank” system subject to their availability and not having any connection to the scope of the inquiry.
Rising Covid-19 rates putting pressure on NHS again
It's been a while since the dreaded C-word has been included in The Northern Agenda, but Covid-19 infections are rising again across the UK with one in 30 people estimated to have the virus.
And with two new sub-variants of Omicron blamed, on Teesside rising covid cases are taking their toll on staffing at a local hospital trust . At a recent meeting of Stockton’s latest health and wellbeing board, public health chief Sarah Bowman-Abouna said hospital admissions have been increasing but not to the extent they were earlier in the pandemic, despite the levels of infection.
“That’s reflected in intensive care units as well," she said. "But that doesn’t mean hospitals are not under pressure – they certainly are. Particularly in the health and care sector, business continuity is an issue."
Hilton Heslop, from North Tees and Hartlepool NHS trust, confirmed Covid was having an impact on staffing. “We’re finding lots of people are unaware they’ve got covid because people are starting to live with it now,” he said.
“They are realising later on they had Covid and by that point they’ve passed it on so it’s impacting on our staff which is a big concern for our elective programme but also planning right through the vaccine programme."
Across the North, as our graph shows, there were 2,912 people admitted to hospital with Covid on the week ending June 29, up from 936 people in the week ending May 29 - an increase of 211% over the month.
'Deeply flawed' consultation on mayor as just 1 in 25 have a say
It's been partially under the control of government-appointed commissioners for months, but at beleaguered Liverpool council there's a fierce debate about which politicians should be making the decisions.
And the question is likely to remain live after an inconclusive consultation exercise in which only 4% of the city's population took part, as Liam Thorp of the Liverpool Echo reports .
Asked for their views on how the city should be governed, around 41% of those who responded said they would like to stick with the current system of an elected mayor. Nearly 33% preferred a committee system like that recently introduced at Sheffield council and 23.6% the leader and cabinet model in place before Liverpool brought in the mayoral system.
Despite the latter model coming bottom of the three options, Liverpool's ruling Labour group has announced that it intends to vote to implement this system at a deciding council meeting later this month.
It is a move that will leave some people questioning the point of the consultation exercise. And Lib Dem group leader Richard Kemp said he would now support a move to a committee system after what he described as a "deeply flawed" consultation.
Elsewhere in Liverpool , bus drivers have today started a series of strikes in a row over pay . Stagecoach drivers walked out after talks between the company and the Unite union failed to reach a breakthrough. Unite said its members "overwhelmingly decided" that the latest offer did not meet their expectations, with two thirds of workers voting against it.
The dispute affects 370 members of Unite, who are employed as bus drivers and engineers and work at the company's Gilmoss depot on the East Lancashire Road in Liverpool.
The inland port bidding to shed its 'forgotten town' image
The town was once home to a thriving shipping industry and still enjoys the distinction of being the UK’s most inland port, with container ships ferrying goods up and down the River Humber where they are offloaded for onward journeys.
After decades of economic decline, parts of Goole in the East Riding of Yorkshire are among the most deprived parts of the country. But the building of a new facility in its Railway Village hub is the latest chapter in the town trying to reinvent itself.
As Local Democracy Reporter Joe Gerrard writes , steel girders and modern factory buildings now tower above what was once grassland as a major Siemens site there continues to take shape.
Industry Minister Lee Rowley last week joined Siemens figures and local leaders for a look around a new £7m components facility set to fit parts to next generation London Underground trains. The components facility sits within the wider Goole Railway Village, worth £200m, and estimates put the number of jobs to be created at 700 when it is fully operational.
Local councillor Anne Handley said: “I feel that the general feeling from speaking to people is that Goole’s been forgotten for a long time. But it now seems that someone somewhere’s lifted up their head and thought: ‘why not Goole?’"
Tech firms 'recognising abundance of talent in the North'
Things are looking up for the North's technology sector as city leaders bid to encourage the high-skilled, high-paid jobs seen as vital to the region's economy.
Last year tech firm Accenture unveiled a major jobs push for the North through the creation of around 1,500 jobs, while Manchester is seen as the fastest-growing tech hub in Europe . And now international consulting firm Credera is strengthening its presence in the North by adding hubs in Leeds, Manchester and most recently Newcastle to its arsenal.
Bosses at the firm, described as a global boutique company on the cutting edge of tech, say its expansion in the North "will not only continue to support national levelling up aspirations, but will give the organisation access to a vast pool of talent".
The organisation, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, already has a presence in London as well as the USA, India and Singapore, plans to recruit 200 tech experts from the region over the next three years.
Credera chief executive Chris Dean said the North was "increasingly becoming the hub of progressive development". He added: “We’ve recognised the abundance of talent in the region, and we want to be one of the firms on the cutting edge of that recruitment drive for highly-skilled engineers and consultants."
Invest Newcastle has been supporting Credera with their move to the North East of England and introduced the firm to the North of Tyne Combined Authority, where they were able to access an Inward Investment Grant of £1 million to support the creation of 160 high skilled roles.
Sign up to The Northern Agenda
Has a friend forwarded you this edition of The Northern Agenda? You can sign up to receive the latest email newsletter direct to your inbox every weekday by clicking on this link .
Northern Stories
-
Sheffield Council ’s shipping container attraction has been delayed over concerns by Yorkshire Water that it could cause problems in one of the city’s biggest sewers . The £446,000 attraction featuring food vendors, shops, toilets, living walls, outdoor seating and a big screen was due to open at the top of Fargate near the Town Hall last weekend ahead of Sheffield hosting the women’s Euros. However, Yorkshire Water – which has only just learnt of the plans – said it was too dangerous.
-
Stockport-born Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner will speak today about the ‘representation gap’ in Parliament at an event in London. The Ashton-under-Lyne MP is due to appear at a public panel event organised by the IPPR think-tank and in a keynote speech will talk about her experiences coming from an under-represented background and lessons for Parliament and political parties. The event takes place at Convocation Hall in Westminster. Find out more here .
-
The Manchester Evening News has unveiled its new editor as Sarah Lester - who was previously senior editor at the regional daily. In her expanded role, she will be responsible for the brand development of the MEN across print and online, in addition to her existing duties with its website. Sarah, who started as a reporter for the MEN in 1997, succeeds Darren Thwaites who will remain editor-in-chief of the title in his role as marketplace publisher for Reach plc’s northern titles.
-
An East Lancashire town is to get a new country park, a local authority leader has revealed . Hyndburn Council's political boss Cllr Miles Parkinson told its full meeting on Thursday that it had purchases Bury Meadow in Oswaldtwistle . The 87 acres of land adjoining a former chemical works site off Nook Lane has been the subject of fly-tipping in the past.
-
A Manchester councillor has quit Labour to join the Greens, saying she felt 'constantly at odds' with the culture of the largest party at the town hall . Hulme councillor Ekua Bayunu has defected to the Green Party today, making the group of three the official opposition at Manchester council now. She blamed 'bullying' and 'harassment' in Labour locally and said that being a black woman and a socialist in the party has become 'increasingly untenable'. However, Labour says these claims were found to be 'without foundation'.
- Cheshire Police has confirmed it will be moving ahead with its plans to axe manned helpdesks from 11 stations . The force announced the closures following a six-week public consultation on the proposals, which were first revealed in February. The shift away from face-to-face contact desks is a response to the 'changing demands of how residents prefer to get in touch with police'. These include the use of the 101 helpline and the website.
