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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I would like to come down to earth. I come from the north-east and I remember very well the arguments with Middlesbrough and with Stockton on the subject of Middlehaven and the north bank of the Tees—the north Stockton bank. That was one of the things that led to the disappearance of the urban development corporations. There was real anger that powers had been taken away from the local authorities at that time. It was of course under a different Government but memories are long. This subject needs to be treated with the utmost care because people are not going to forget what happened on those occasions, nor how long it took English Partnerships to assume the responsibilities—it had to find out what had been done and take over everything—and how long it has taken to get those projects off the ground. There was a huge hiccup resulting from local anger about the way in which the powers were being given to the corporations.