Bradford misses out as Darlington confirmed as location…

Bradford misses out as Darlington confirmed as location for Government’s new Treasury North

DARLINGTON has been confirmed as the new location for the Government’s new Treasury North.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak this morning told Treasury officials that they would be relocating from London to Darlington, beating off competition from Newcastle, Leeds and Bradford.

The move will see 22,000 civil servants moved out of London by 2030, with the initial swathe of job moves seeing 750 officials from several Government departments moved up north.

In the video, posted on Twitter by the BBC’s Lewis Goodall, Mr Sunak says: “We have decided to put the new economic campus in Darlington and I am really excited”.

This video has just been sent to Treasury Civil servants announcing Darlington as the site of the new Treasury site (no sound) pic.twitter.com/Ph9xMJnMXF
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) March 3, 2021

It is seen by the Government as a big part of it’s “levelling up” agenda.

Ahead of the announcement, there were whisperings that the chancellor was under pressure from colleagues to opt for the railway town of Darlington on Teesside. It is one of the areas that the Tories had won from Labour in the 2019 election.

Mr Sunak’s huge Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire lies to the south of Darlington, which is on the East Coast Main Line and voted Tory at the 2019 general election.

It is also understood that Tees Valley has long been the favourite to host the new northern hub as Baroness Simone Finn, Downing Street’s chief of staff, had said recently that it was the “obvious” choice. 

Campaigners, MPs and Bradford Council had campaigned for the HQ to be moved to the district, describing how it would be a “huge economic and morale boost”.

Campaigners cited the area’s banking expertise left over from when Bradford & Bingley was shut down as well as high unemployment rates.

Shipley MP Philip Davies said it would act as “a good way to redress the balance” after losing a lot of HM Revenue & Customs jobs to Leeds.

While Jac Morton, who formed the ‘Bring Public Sector Jobs Back to Bradford’ campaign alongside business owner Matthew Crowther, said it would “breathe much needed life back in to the community”.

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