I’m going to have a home in Sunderland again. Even writing that makes me smile.
We are restoring 176 High Street West, a beautiful Grade II listed building in the city where I grew up. It will become the Home of Books, with my very own bookshop downstairs and a home for me and visiting writers and artists above. I’m absolutely chuffed to bits about it.
This isn’t just another restoration project. It is my way of putting something back into the city that gave me everything. 176 has been neglected, but it was never worthless.
Spend any time at 176 and the word “growth” stops being something abstract on a Treasury spreadsheet. You see builders, craftspeople, suppliers and local businesses bringing an old building back to life.
When the doors open, it will bring people, energy and opportunity to the high street.
That is what investment looks like when it reaches a real place.
We must judge places on what they could become, rather than simply where they are now
George Clarke TV presenter, architect, writer and Ecodan Ambassador
Creating growth
And that is exactly how I feel about far too many towns and cities across the North. They were never short of value. They were short of investment.
So, when the new Chancellor, John Healey, gave his first major economic speech and talked about shifting power and money away from Whitehall and into our regions, I paid attention.
He announced a roadmap for fiscal devolution, £150 million for the British Business Bank to help Northern businesses grow, a new Northern 500 business community and a strategic partnership between the Northeast and the National Wealth Fund.
I welcome all of it. Genuinely.
I particularly liked the proposal to judge places on what they could become, rather than simply where they are now.
Anyone who works with old buildings understands that. You don’t look at a tired building and conclude that it has no future. You see past the neglect. You imagine what it could become, then give it the love, skill and investment it needs to get there.
We should look at our towns and cities in exactly the same way. If we only invest in places where the economy is already strongest, we aren’t creating growth. We are following it.
Creating the right climate
But one crucial thing was missing from the Chancellor’s speech. He talked about housing, infrastructure, transport and energy, yet climate change, decarbonisation and net zero barely got a look in.
That isn’t a minor omission. It is a massive hole. We still talk about economic growth, skilled jobs and cutting carbon as though they are three separate ambitions. They are not. They are the same project.
Retrofitting a home creates work for designers, builders, electricians, manufacturers and heating engineers. It reduces energy use, lowers bills and gives a family a warmer, healthier place to live.
That isn’t environmentalism getting in the way of growth. That is growth. Green growth isn’t just a slogan in a government document. It is someone standing on scaffolding in February, using their skills to make another person’s home better.
Some people might get a laugh from calling environmental action “net stupid”. But what is genuinely stupid is paying for expensive energy and then letting it escape through the roof. In a cost-of-living crisis, wasting less energy matters more, not less.
Lifechanging opportunities
Proper retrofit starts with the building. Improve the fabric. Deal with draughts and heat loss. Provide good ventilation. Then choose the right heating system. A heat pump can be a brilliant part of that solution, but it isn’t a miracle. It cannot make up for decades of neglect on its own. Good technology needs a good building and skilled people.
The Government’s Warm Homes Plan aims to upgrade millions of homes by 2030. That represents an extraordinary amount of work and an extraordinary opportunity. But a target does not pick up a tool. Without enough trained people, it is just a number on a page.
At the same time, nearly one million young people are not in education, employment or training. I have always hated the term NEET. Nobody ever felt seen, valued or inspired by being reduced to four letters.
When I was 16, a Sunderland architect called David Johnson gave me an opportunity. I spent four days a week in his office and one day at college.
He didn’t give me a grand plan. He gave me a chance. And that chance changed my life.
Working twice as hard
There are thousands of young people who could become brilliant joiners, electricians, engineers, architects, heating installers and building technicians. They don’t lack talent or ambition. They lack that first open door.
The North does not have a talent shortage. It has a chance shortage. Why shouldn’t every major programme of retrofit and green construction become an apprenticeship programme too? Every pound of public investment should work twice as hard, improving a building while helping someone build a future.
This is where all the Government’s announcements either join up or fall apart. The British Business Bank can help local firms expand. The National Wealth Fund can invest in clean infrastructure. Colleges can provide training. Councils and mayors can create a reliable pipeline of work through housing, schools and public buildings.
Kept apart, they are a collection of press releases. Joined together, they become a regional economy.
Three simple questions
That is what real devolution should achieve. It cannot simply mean moving paperwork north. Local leaders need the power and long-term funding to join the dots. Every regional growth plan should answer three simple questions:
- Will it reduce energy use and carbon?
- Will it create good local jobs?
- And how will a young person get one of those jobs?
Our Northeast mayor, Kim McGuinness, has been fighting for these things for years. Real devolution must happen to give inspirational mayors like her the power and money to create real change.
“Place before politics” were the words of Manchester’s former mayor. Let’s hope he stands by those words more than ever.
I’ve visited Mitsubishi Electric’s training facilities and met some of the engineers and installers doing this work. The thing that always strikes me is that even the most brilliant technology depends on brilliant people. A heat pump does not design, install or commission itself. Behind every good system is someone with the skill and care to get it right.
Give us the tools
Back at 176, our little project obviously isn’t going to transform the Northeast on its own. But it demonstrates what joined-up growth can look like. One investment can save a historic building, support skilled work, reduce future energy use, bring people back to a high street, create a public space and provide a home.
None of those benefits competes with the others. Each one strengthens the next.
Sunderland built ships that sailed around the world. It made glass. It mined coal. It is a city with making in its bones. Its problem has never been a lack of talent, pride or ambition.
And now I’m making a home there again. I want young people growing up in Sunderland today to believe they can build a good life there too, without feeling their only option is to leave.
Growth isn’t just a percentage announced on the evening news. It is the lights coming back on in an old building. It is a family living in a warm home they can afford to heat. It is a young person receiving their first wage and realising that someone believes in them. That is growth people can see, feel and believe in.
The North doesn’t need saving. It needs backing. Give it the tools and it will do what it has always done.
It will build.
George Clarke is a TV presenter, architect, writer and Ecodan Ambassador
