Northern Powerhouse Office to close

Two programmes tonight, one from Sheffield, about the impact of immigration, and Question Time from Bradford.
Hope the Northern Powerhouse shows its best.

All the articles about Bradford film media moving to London call it cultural vandalism.

You're absolutely right nightowl, and that epithet still hangs round our neck like a dead albatross. It brought us pariah status and derision for years. We are only, with the council finally coming to its senses and with help from our two excellent universities, now shedding decades of anti-business, anti-capitalist rhetoric and trying to move forward again and attract new businesses to the city. The trouble is, it's still a learning curve for the council and with every step forward we take, the government seem to want us to take two steps back. I will say, at risk of engendering gales of laughter from some, I am a Tory voter and have voted thus all my life, therefore my vote has never counted for much here, but I would like to see this city mean something again.

I think the 'socialist republic of south yorkshire' is still paying the price for being a labour stronghold that provided excellent services and had thriving industries Greyduster. My home territory, and still loved by me even though I no longer live there.

"Much rather avoid it to go to the Peak District". It seems that, like you, the Government would much rather avoid it to go anywhere!

Went there a few times when we lived in Hull.
We quite liked it, but we didn't live there.
Much rather avoid it to go to the Peak District.
You aren't far from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, either.

We are a city full of glorious green spaces, within spitting distance of one of the finest National Parks in Britain. The diverse local population are helpful and friendly. What's not to like?

Sheffield has been voted the sixth happiest city to work in in the UK.

There will always be those in the London establishment who think that it is not worthwhile moving anything from the capital to the North. There was a lot of resistance to the idea of opening a branch of the Royal Armouries in Leeds, (to house some of the stuff the Tower had kicking around in its cellars that never saw the light of day); no-one would go to see it, it would need too much grant aid to keep it going, any number of excuses. It thrives, despite cuts in its grant aid. It is making money. It had almost two million visitors last year, over a million of them from overseas. I've no doubt that there are still those who would still whip the whole shooting match back south in a heartbeat, given the chance, though.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/01/bradford-museum-london-royal-photography-society-national-media-museum

Not the only thing moving to London.

I consider myself a Londoner having lived the majority of my life in greater London and loving London and all it offers. BUT I still find the attitude that London is the only worthwhile cultural/ financial/ political place in the UK appalling. The London centric attitude of people in control /power is saddening and foolish.

It is ridiculous to move the Northern Powerhouse to the South...

Not if we put a border up and do not let them through without paying a fortune, trisher. Hadrian's wall wasn't built to keep out the Scots. It was built to tax them to travel south.

That's the problem isn't it we'd quite like a bit more employment and some more opportunities but we do like to keep how nice it is up here a bit of a secret, and if all those media types get to know about it house prices will rocket and we will be flooded with them.

They love it, as I know somebody working there.Housing is cheaper too.

North Humberland, railman, as it used to be. They can have south of the Humber, we'll have the rest. As you say, we have the engineering expertise.
On the other hand, perhaps the reason it's too clean up north is because they've closed all the factories.

It would be interesting, trisher, to find out what all those BBC people think of working in Salford Quays. Pretty smart round there now.

I think there are probably celebrations in Whitehall- "Heard about Carruthers- got sent Oop North- managed to get the whole kit and caboodle shipped back down here. Now we can all sleep safer in our beds. Was seriously worried we might all have to move," horrified pause "to Manchester!"

Railman, my DD is constantly getting letters for an address the same as hers but in Shenfield, not Sheffield! I thought postcodes were supposed to be foolproof. The postcode for Shenfield is CM; ours is S.
Referring back to the original post, not only are we losing the Dbis office to London, HMRC are closing their office in Sheffield and moving to Leeds. Neither Leeds nor London need the extra jobs and we do, but we seem to be constantly being sidelined in favour of what Sheffielders like to refer to as 'The Eternal City up the M1'!

On a different post (Government Watch), I noticed that Eloethan, mentioned that London has the highest NOx pollution in Europe.

Maybe that's why they're moving the Northern Office and 247 staff of the Northern Powerhouse to London.

It's too clean "Oop North"!!

Maybe somebody mistook Sheffield for Shenfield, or used his or her GPS/smartphone app to find out where it was, and they are now embarrassed to admit this faux pas.

Historically, the North has been, along with the West Midlands, where the UK's ideas, inventions and innovation, as well as development and democracy have grown. I refer particularly to industry, science and technology.

London, is basically just "the office", and somewhere to keep an eye on the accounts, whilst the real work has been accomplished beyond the M25.

So maybe relocating the "Northern Powerhouse (Northern Office)" back to London is the right move.

We could set up a border outpost for the "North England Country" at various key crossing points, Doncaster, Crewe, Derby, and apply for membership of either the EU or Scotland. Whoever comes first?

trisher, that's a cracking and accurate summary of reality (your post today at 10.48)

"The department will establish around six business centres across the country, each one focusing on a key business activity. “Even with the movement of policy roles to London, our overall London footprint will decrease by 2020,” staff were reassured in an internal document. “We have, and will continue to have, many more people based outside London than inside London.” "

This just makes the closure of the Sheffield office seem vindictive.
Is that supposed to be reassuring? How?

I think Osborne's North is nothing like the north of most people, trisher.

The rule seems to be if you want it, it would be useful, or it might work you won't get it. If you don't want it, it will be useless and won't work you're going to get it wether you like it or not. If I was cynical I would suspect that they weren't interested in anything Up-North!

Here in North Wales we would also benefit if the North - in particular Manchester and Liverpool had a bigger share of the economic activity of the UK. N Wales does not have a big city - and its population of about 4000,000 K is spread mostly along the coastal strip.
One of the issues is that there are only limited through train services between N Wales and these 2 important cities.
In an interesting (stupid? spiteful?) move the Westminster government seem to be intent on putting the spoke into train services and making it more difficult to have integrated cross-border trains services, rather than easier.

Yes Manchester has been doing very well without a mayor hasn't it. Fantastic pubic transport system, able to function well with only low numbers commuting into centre by car.

The strange thing is that Sheffield was only made the second city of the Northern Powerhouse last October. It hasn't taken them long to change their minds.
County Durham is being asked what it wants to get out of the Northern Powerhouse. We have all had questionnaires. If this contempt for the idea had been known about before now, perhaps some answers might have been different.
Not that it's a referendum. We are all being blackmailed by Osborne.

Where are all these people going to live in London? As if London needs an extra 247 jobs.