Mayor says Chancellor’s economic campus must not go to Leeds

Following the announcement of  a new economic campus in the North of England, one metro mayor calls for it to not go to Leeds or Manchester.

The new campus announced by the Chancellor yesterday, would see a fifth of Treasury’s staff move to the North of England. It would form part of the Government’s plans to ‘level up’ the country and according to Mr Sunak would eventually house about a fifth of the department’s 1,000 people.

Speaking yesterday the Mr Sunak said: “We [Treasury] are driving economic policy in this country and it’s important that we have a presence everywhere in this country, so we will have a new economic campus in the North led by the Treasury.”

So far no location for the campus has been revealed. However the announcement has sparked a debate amongst leaders as to how the process should work.

Ben Houchen, Tees Valley mayor, took to twitter to say: “I’ve spoken to Rishi about his excellent idea of moving party of Treasury to the North. But it must not go to Manchester or Leeds. If this is to work it must be located outside of our major cities, so that it truly represents the North.”

However, Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership suggested via Twitter the need for a more thorough site selection approach: “I’m expecting a fair competition and/ or an appraisal methodology led process as Channel 4 did.”