‘What we’re being given isn’t enough’
WE should always welcome any investment that comes into Stoke-on-trent but it has to be sustainable.
During my time as an MP representing our city, I saw programmes promise to be the magic solution to the city’s woes.
A Ceramic Sector deal that never materialised, a failed bid for City of Culture, an unsuccessful attempt to attract Channel 4 and being pitted against other cities in a beauty pageant to compete for money which, in reality, was never enough to meet the needs of Stoke-on-trent but big enough to look good on a press release.
But since 2010, millions has been cut from the city council budget alone.
Now we have ‘levelling up’, where the lives of people on our city are supposedly going to change because of a couple of new car parks and some luxury flats.
The fact is that compared to everything we have lost, what we are being given is not nearly enough and it is too focused on buildings and not improving lives.
GARETH SNELL FORMER MP FOR STOKE-ONTRENT CENTRAL