All Quiet On The Saltwell Front

An uneasy calm has followed a frantic few weeks. Public sector organisations notoriously up their activity in the weeks before the end of March in order to spend money before the end of the financial year.

Gateshead appear to be pretty much the same. However as they are increasingly finding deepening opposition to demolition they have turned to renovation projects over the area to spend the money. We welcome the renovation. We are also waiting for the politicians to start saying that the renovation projects were all their idea and part of the plan. This is going to have to happen as housing renewal funds get squeezed by huge government debt.

The political reality is that we are one year away from elections; the locals and the General Election. The Labour Party does not want to go into an election with their natural supporters facing the demolition of the their homes. Frankly they would be carrying out political suicide to carry out mass demolition in Labour voting northern constituencies. However political suicide seems to be flavour of the moment for the Labour Party. Meanwhile the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats would almost certainly cease all housing funding in an austerity binge.

Labour needs to be careful that it doesn't say to residents of the north "vote Tory to stop demolition" otherwise it may find people do exactly that.