Labour 'will have failed' if former coal mining towns continue to suffer, mayor warns

Kim McGuinness told a fringe event at Labour’s annual conference on Monday that former mining towns across Durham and Northumberland were “some of the most vibrant communities we have, but some that are the most visibly in need of change”.

She told a reception celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust: “If this Labour Government working with a Labour mayor can’t improve lives in coalfield areas then we will have failed, we won’t have matched our own moral rhetoric. These are the areas most in need of change, these are the areas which will suffer most if we do fail.”

2024 marks 40 years since the start of the miners’ strike and figures have shown that mining areas continue to face a shortage of jobs decades after the pits closed down.

The State of the Coalfields 2024 report revealed that the rate of job growth in the former coalfields has been far slower than in big cities, showing that almost 600,000 coalfield residents claim out-of-work benefits – including 19.2% of working age adults in Durham and 17.6% in Northumberland.

The mayor said that her promise to take the North East’s buses back under public control would be “vital” to delivering more regular and reliable public transport to former pit villages “where there is often deep-rooted poverty and some of the lowest car ownership in the country”.

She also talked up plans to launch a commission on how to revive struggling high streets around the region and a new childcare grant to help parents trying to get back into work.

Ms McGuinness said: “Yes, the North East needs high-end jobs in new and emerging sectors. But it also needs work in the foundational economy, in the local high street that often is all that stands between having a manageable week and a hellish week.

“Devolution gives us the tools to help address this, to build on the hard work of others. Myself and other mayors are working on Local Growth Plans, the joint approach we have agreed with Government which will guide Government investment into our regions for the next decade.

“Government is of course very keen on the big ticket items that can feed into a national industrial strategy, the offshore wind and the advanced manufacturing that can transform growth and productivity. That is so very important and we want those things in our region, our region has unrivalled access to the North Sea to create these jobs.

“But in a region like ours there is no victory in simply creating those graduate jobs if all we do is widen the divides in the North East. Our growth has to be inclusive and that will be the national aim and in the North East that will be integral.”

She added: “People choose to live in these areas – they often have generational links to their home and they feel a real connection to it. It is part of who they are.

“They don’t want those towns to be abandoned and they don’t see any reason why the people at the top should only focus on cities and global links. Our job is to back their pride and revive these towns and I can’t wait to work with the trust on this.”