£50 MILLION DISAPPEARS FROM LONGBRIDGE

19-12-2006

“Give us the money” - that's the demand from the community around Longbridge after it emerged that £50 million earmarked for the area after the closure of the MG Rover factoryis now being returned to the Treasury.

Industry Minister Margaret Hodge claimedyesterdaythe cash wasn't needed as the impact on components suppliers hadn't been as great as was originally feared and more privateinvestors had come forward to redevelop the site than had been expected.

The government has spent around £126 million dealing with the aftermath of the shutdown, much of it on redundancies and bailing out firms in the supply chain who were caught out by Rover's demise.

But the local view is that the rest of the allocation should now be made available for investemt in the future of Longbridge, and surrounding parts of south-west Birmingham including Northfield and Kings Norton.

Former car worker Andrew Cartwright, who was employedat the factory for 15 years is now training to be a youth worker.

He told us: “When my dad worked on the site it employed 30,000 people. When I started there, it had work for 16,000. It wasn't just the employees who felt the benefit, there were the spin-offs for all the local shops

“Now the young people who I work with who are about to leave school with no qualifications, or not very many, want to know where they are going to work. Longbridge will have a new technology park, but that won't provide jobs for them.

“Young people are always being threatened with ASBO's, but how about putting some of that money into the youth service so we can keep them out of trouble."

Longbridge Tory councillor Keith Barton spoke of his “shock” at the news that so much cash is going back into the government's coffers.

He outlined plans for a new “village centre” which is being planned on the factory's old North Works on the Bristol Road, and said any surplus money should have been invested there.

“The trouble with Longbridge is that it's very sparse - there's very little for young people to do, and very little for older people. We want to put a few attractions in so that it's a place people will want to come to.”