Monday, November 20, 2006

Assembly on the move - but of its own accord

The Northern Echo
Saturday 18th November 2006

THE controversial North-East Assembly was on the move last night - with officials denying they had been forced out of their home.
The assembly, which has been based at the Grade I-listed Guildhall building on Newcastle's Quayside, is moving to a new headquarters in Team Valley, Gateshead, from Monday.
It had only paid a peppercorn rent on the Guildhall, which is owned by Newcastle City Council.
Last night, anti-assembly campaigner Neil Herron, from Sunderland, an arch-critic of the assembly, said: "Newcastle Liberal Democrats probably can't afford to subsidise it with ratepayers' money any longer."
However, Councillor Alex Watson, leader of Derwentside District Council and chairman of the assembly, said there had been no pressure placed on it from the council to move on.
The assembly, which has a £2m annual budget, has said the move will give it more space after it recently merged with the Regional Housing Board to increase its staff to 30.
Coun Watson said there was no legal agreement in place with the city council, which meant it could have been given notice to quit at any time.
He said: "They have always given us verbal assurances that we were okay, but they could have served notice on us at any time to get out.
"We have statutory obligations we need to meet to make sure our staff are secure and housed in premises that meet health and safety at work obligations."
Coun Watson said money was available from the Government to pay for accommodation and the assembly would pay the going commercial rate at its new base.
An assembly spokeswoman said: "It is very much an accommodation issue - the Guildhall is bursting at the seams. It might look huge from the outside, but there is not much office space."
11:07am Saturday 18th November 2006
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If available 'space' is an issue at guildhall, then surely it would have been more spacially efficient for the assembly to simply disband, or is that too straight forward for those freeloaders to comprehend.

1:23 pm
Anonymous said...

on 15.10.06 did Mr. Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
in parliament said
" in dealing with the structures of local government in
the north-east, we need to tackle the continued existence
of the North East assembly, which is left over from the days
before the referendum. I supported regional government and a
yes vote in the referendum, but the people of the north-east
had their say and there is no role, either now or or in
future, for the unelected regional assembly. It should be
done away with, and if the local government Bill can be used
to do that, we should do it and replace the assembly with
bodies that are accountable, such as the Association of
North East Councils and the chamber of commerce. That would
be more cost-effective and more representative than what we
have now. We are spending almost £2 million a year on a
talking shop that has little support outside those people who
have the vested interest of sitting on the assembly".
Has this been reported in the press?

9:54 am

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