Cllr Mike Young is the Leader of Hartlepool Borough Council.
It’s fair to say that the Tees Valley has become an interesting place politically. Hartlepool remains under no overall control but is led by a Conservative coalition of 12 Conservative councillors and six independent councillors with the Leader of the council now being Conservative. Hartlepool bucked the trend across the Tees Valley and has the only administration being Conservative-led – but only just. Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland Councils are already showing signs of strain due to them now being Labour-led, whilst Hartlepool is holding its own.
The difficulty at the moment is that Labour have 17 votes; we have 18 votes; and there is an independent who is floating in the middle. However, the delivery that we put in place in 2019, supported by the increasing numbers on council and a Conservative MP, Jill Mortimer, landing in 2021 has definitely brought about the kinds of investment from the government, and the kind of confidence from the private sector, that we need.
With help from Ben Houchen, Tees Valley Mayor, we have been very strong in the delivery of our capital programmes. With Jill Mortimer MP we have attracted funding from the Towns Fund and from Levelling Up funds. More recently we’ve received another £20 million, which brings our total investment over the last couple of years to around £180 million. What we are seeing is a revival in key sector areas – and on the back of that we’re able to deliver strong leisure services, fantastic for the residents of the town.
In terms of our capital programme, we have the National Museum of the Royal Navy which is delivering even more resource to the town, having recently purchased a very large section of a retail park – and we are anticipating some fantastic exhibitions in that space. We’ve got Highlight, which is our brand new leisure centre which broke ground on November 22nd that will boast three swimming pools; a family pool, a junior pool, and an adult pool. Also an events space and public realm – which is all very welcome for the area.
Very soon we will also complete the Tees Valley combined-authority-funded railway station improvements. This includes a footbridge which is now coming back to life after decades of no use; the two sides of the platform will be in operation providing some much-needed increased capacity for the town. Wider benefits are linked to what we’ve done in terms of creative industries, seeing a very significant drive towards film, TV and wider productions being a solid part of our strategy for regeneration. We have the northern film and TV studios which have already seen Netflix, Director Jamie Childs (Disney and Netflix), and Sky Sports use the facility for advertisements. Ben Stokes, the England cricketer, was shooting an advert recently. Netflix has been using the facility to shoot a feature film called Jackdaw and there have also been other well-watched series’ using the facility. Plans were adopted to expand the reach of the Studios leading to a new production village being developed.
What is evident is that Labour is very disappointed at the developments that have been delivered by the Conservative-led administration. It is clear that their lack of support for budgets that we have put forward and passed since 2019 (since our leadership began) cannot be understated. Very strong and positive capital developments haven’t had support from them, which residents themselves have backed through consultation. So what is very clear to us is that we need to press on, heading towards the elections in May 2024 to really hit home the key message, which is about what we as a team, including the MP and Tees Valley Mayor, have delivered. We have an ongoing aspiration to grow and develop the town with the positives that are happening including the Tall Ships Race – a phenomenal success with over 300,000 visits, 12.5 million pounds going into the local economy, 83 young people who were trained by Sail Training International – and of course thanks to the staff and volunteer team who worked for such a long time before, during, and after the event.
We have high hopes for our Nuclear Power future and further work on our hospital, which has received £13.5 million this year from government.
The fact remains that next year will be a very challenging election based on the absolute fact that we are fighting seven Conservative seats out of 12 and a number of our independent colleagues will be fighting for their seats too. The need for backing by the national party and CCHQ for Hartlepool is absolutely paramount in order to deliver success. Any donations from those who want to help can be communicated to mikeyoung@hartlepoolconservatives.com.