Stoke-on-Trent Councillors Back Plans To Scrap NSRP

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Stoke-on-Trent City Councillors today [Thursday] backed plans to scrap the controversial NSRP, putting hundreds of jobs at risk in the City.

At a meeting of the Full Council, elected members backed plans to form a new Local Enterprise Partnership [LEP] with neighbours Staffordshire County Council.

Councillors also voiced concern about historical problems between the County Council and the City when trying to get Stoke-on-Trent’s fair share of any joint funded venture.

Four proposals had been put before the council including the option to stay in the current NSRP.

The other options were to operate independently and to form a new LEP between North Staffordshire & Cheshire East.

The latter seemed nothing more than a pipe dream as Cheshire East has recently opted to form a LEP with Warrington.

Council Leader Mohammed Pervez [Labour] urged the council to back the plans to work in partnership with Staffordshire.

The government have set a side a fund of just £1billion for which all LEP’s will compete for.

Deputy Council Leader Ross Irving [Conservative & Independent Alliance] said that the Staffordshire option ‘was the only game in town’. He called for the leader of the new LEP to be led by an independent non political chair, preferably for the private sector.

Cllr Mick Salih [Community Voice] reminded the meeting that the City Council were probably the biggest employer in the area and any partnership would have to serve the needs of the whole of the city and it’s workforce. He asked for the future emphasis of the new LEP to focus on bringing manufacturing jobs to the city. He wanted more skilled jobs and apprenticeships. He called for an new open and transparent process in selecting the chair of the new LEP and insisted that it should not be a case of a short list of one. He said he would be supporting the new partnership arrangement with Staffordshire.

The new LEP proposals were also backed in speeches by Cllrs Peter Kent-Baguley, Knapper, Lyth, Reynolds and Brown

Cllr Mike Barnes said that he would support the new LEP with Staffordshire. He said that current situation reminded him of the 1997 Labour Party Election song ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ He said that he had every confidence that the CEO John van de Laarschot to get the best deal for Stoke-on-Trent, but he did not have confidence in the Council Leader Mohammed Pervez who ‘might be too busy’. He teased Pervez that perhaps he would be best served leaving it to other members.

Pervez responded by saying that he was pleased that Cllr Barnes had confidence in the CEO and that he would have been very surprised if he had confidence in him as Council Leader. He urged Cllr Barnes not to worry because all councillors in the chamber knew that they were very different individuals and that he was very grateful for that!

Pervez thanks the Elected Members for their supportive comments on this issue. He said he would ensure that all councillors were kept fully up to date with developments. He said he was committed to Stoke-on-Trent City Council getting the very best possible for all the communities in our city and he understood that Staffordshire County Council doing the same.

The motion to support entering into talks with Stafforshire County Council about forming a new LEP was carried.

Just one councillor, Gavin Webb, voted against the motion because he felt that there was just too much regulation on businesses and that society should push for a free market free from regulation.

Cllr Webb urged for more to be done for small business enterprises who would he believed never benefited from projects like LEP’s.

Have Your Say

  • Mick Williams

    This report had me diving for the LGC (Local Govt Chronicle) issue of 15th July, where an article by Allister Hayman explained the way that ‘LEPs’ were anticipated to develop (in a speech by Eric Pickles at the LGA conference in Bournemouth) and some of the reaction from the local authorities listening to it.

    But since the LEPs are really meant to replace the RDAs can anyone believe that a Stoke/Staffs body’s application will stand a cat in hell’s chance ? Especially since the Treasury are in favour of only 20 to 30 LEPs nationally.

    This is not the first time local misunderstanding of the role of public bodies has resulted in total embarrassment for the Council. The completely mis-named LSP (Local Strategic Partnership) has never been about strategy but has busied itself ticking boxes for the Council in terms of the OPERATIONAL aspects of services and the meeting of the sacred TARGETS set by national government.

    And it is perfectly understandable that Irving will claim that this option is the ‘only game in town’. This reminds me of the several Labour local politicians who described PPP/PFI schemes in those terms – and look where that got us ! Ross is being very true to form when he expresses a wish to hitch the City’s wagon to the Philip Atkins star at the County but is that really what the electorate voted for less than three months ago ? Pervez meekly goes along with this, as do the rest of the local Labour luminaries, which only serves to show up their political illiteracy – especially from a Labour standpoint.

    However, this does certainly chime with Irving’s wish that the Chair be ‘non-political’ and from the private sector (although your report above says – perhaps a Freudian slip – ‘for’ the private sector). Now I have been in politics an extremely long time and I have yet to see an ‘independent non-political’ representative from that particular sector. Current decisions by such people will rarely bear scrutiny as to the vested interests they serve.

    The recent device of launching a ‘consultation’ of citizens to say where they feel cuts should fall is yet another way to apportion blame to those who have no control over their destiny, and when the cuts are duly delivered they will be told: “This is what you said you wanted”. Such skullduggery is obvious to those who are able to do a bit of research, but the current political groups are now without their very useful ‘political assistants’. These were removed with the consent of the groups, and my, weren’t the officers relieved when it happened !

    We at democracy4stoke would like to believe that this ‘consultation’ is as a result of the Council heeding the last part of our mission statement -which says: “and which truly reflects the wishes of its citizens” – but sadly recognise that it is just another means of passing the buck.

    In democracy,

    Mick Williams,
    Convenor, D4S.