Shropshire Star: Dragged into the pointless city region

Dragged into the pointless city region

Telford & Wrekin Council are forging ahead with plans to be part of a city region despite public opposition.

How much support is there for the city region? There has only ever been one referendum on regional government in England and that resulted in the people of the North East – apparently the most pro-regional part of England – rejecting it with a 78 per cent no vote.

Telford & Wrekin Council refuses to hold any public consultation until Telford is well and truly tied into the city region.

David Wright knows how much support there is – over a year ago he wrote to me admitting that there is very little support for regional government in Telford. This didn’t stop him working with David Milliband on the city region project, though.

When West Midllands NO! was launched last month we wrote to all MPs in the West Midlands. To his credit, the Labour MPs, only David Wright chose to reply.

A number of Conservative MPs responded saying that they too opposed regional government but they all said that they would have to wait until the Conservatives were in power to do something about it. Whatever happened to HM Opposition?

When we launched our campaign we challenged Telford & Wrekin Council to justify its actions. It is yet to do so and we ask members again to stop taking decisions behind closed doors, stop ignoring what the people of Telford are telling you and tell us why you are taking us into a city region that won’t benefit us and that we don’t want.

Stuart Parr
West Midlands No!

Has Brown ordered a stop to the City Region?

Prominent political blogger, Nigel Hastilow, appears to have information that Gordon Brown has ordered that efforts to establish the City Region be stopped.

The Chancellor is apparently keen to make sure there are no “unsellable” policies when he is installed as Tony Blair’s replacement.

Hastilow echoes the comments and opinions of most prominent business leaders in the euroregion over the naming of the Birmingham, Black Country and Coventry City Region.  The choice of name was immediately condemned by business leaders – and the West Midlands NO! Campaign – as wholly inappropriate.