Northern Powerhouse Office to close

I think that as Westminster is going to close for refurbishment that parliament should move up to Sheffield. Then ministers will be close to the Northern Powerhouse expertise.

The Northern Power House seems to be the government's idea of irony. In Greater Manchester, we're to have a Mayor, despite a public vote against this very recently. If Osborne wanted to help the North he'd ensure there was a northern powerhouse office in the , well, North. He'd also ensure that rather than a railway that reduced journey time to London by 10 minutes, any available cash was spent on improving the infra structure in what is laughingly referred to as "the north".

Sheffield is 165 miles south of my house!

How can the Northern Powerhouse have no base in the north? I agree with the others about Skye and video conferencing. There seems very little argument against it, except for MP's and civil servants being afraid to cut the ties that bind them to Westminster.

He'd have to drag them by their feet while their finger nails gouged grooves in the Whitehall tarmac, JessM! I remember the cried of woe there were when the BBC transferred staff to Manchester!

History of Northen Powerhouse idea.

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northern-powerhouse-how-began-what-9879478

They never meant it. If Osborne wanted to help the North he would relocate a few 10s of civil servant jobs out of expensive London and into cities that could really do with those jobs.

Although I do see the irony of the Northern Powerhouse Office in the South.?

Thanks Badenkate for supplying the reason the office will close ( knew that somebody would know the reason).
I can see that having policy advisors etc close would be a good reason to have the office in the centre of things, London, but in that case it was a waste of money to set it up in Sheffield in the first place.You expect these things to be thought about beforehand!

During the General election campaign I heard a politician proudly boast that he had visited the most northerly constituency in the UK - Hull.
No such place as Scotland then.

Trisher, I didn't think you were being flippant - it is what a lot of people think. And I wasn't being flippant either - that's what we it's beginning to feel like here!

Sorry Greyduster just being flippant. Of course Sheffield is Northern and of course it is in God's own county. Do you suppose the North is to now become anywhere past Watford?

Existence, not assistance!

I don't live in the area designated as the Northern Power House but I am really interested in how it is going. Moving offices to London for the reason given seems ludicrous.Can government ministers not use email, video conferencing or an old school telephone to access expertise? I hope the people of Sheffield are questioning their MP about this.

"For some of us Sheffield us barely northern"! Of course we are! We are a suburb of Leeds! Hadn't you heard? It's the only way we can justify our assistance these days!!

Northern Powerhouse office based in London? Irony alert, anyone?

Haha! trisher, I agree about Sheffield hardly beimg north. When I moved there from Edinburgh, I had never, till then, lived so far south! I enjoyed my time there.

And in this day and age of skype and video conferencing not a valid reason at all.

rosesarered this apparently is the reason: 'Staff were told that the department was to create a combined central HQ and policy centre in London, so that government ministers could access policy expertise more easily, and that the Sheffield office would not be viable once all policy roles had moved to the capital.' Read into that what you will. As trisher says, is it unreasonable to expect the Northern Powerhouse to have an office in somewhere approaching the north of the country?

Is it unreasonable then to expect a Northern Powerhouse to have a Northern office? (Although for some of us Sheffield is barely Northern)

You would have to look into the reasons behind the closing of this office before making knee-jerk assumptions and comments.

Northern industrial areas don't tend to vote Conservative - why waste money on them?

For goodness sake!