In recent weeks a number of positive announcements have been made about potential investment coming into Ashington to reinvigorate its high-street and infrastructure after decades of being held back by successive governments.

This includes a £16m levelling up bid that focuses on upgrading the infrastructure at the Wansbeck Square and Portland Park sites that would involve the development of a cinema site and two new restaurants, a new community hub, performance space, café, and a creative hub for young people.

Alongside this is another £1.9 million pledged by the Labour ran North of Tyne combined authority to invest into the high street in Ashington to give it a new breath of life following the disruption caused by the pandemic.

With construction of a new leisure centre well underway in Morpeth there is plenty of positive news to report for some of our towns across the constituency.

But there are also large parts of the constituency that continue to be starved of the vital funding in infrastructure and leisure resources that they so desperately need.

Bedlington, for example, has seen a huge increase in house building that has swelled its population significantly in recent years. Yet the crucial updates to the fabric of the town have yet to been made while much needed work in the Market Place for example is left unfinished.

Likewise, areas such as Pegswood, Newbiggin, Stakeford and Choppington to name a few go without funding and investment while poverty levels continue to rise rapidly all over the constituency.

As the Conservative party continue to tear shreds out of each other and go head to head as to who can do the best Thatcher impersonation, communities across Wansbeck and beyond continue to fall further behind as the government fail to take them seriously.

Now as Boris Johnson departs the future of the levelling up policy lies in the balance – although it was difficult to see how many areas across the region have been levelled up over a two and a half years that have seen thousands more families plunged below the poverty line.

I really do fear that the next prime Minister, be it either Sunak or Truss, will usher in a new era of decline for towns all across the North East. We need a government with bold policies that are able to tackle head on the challenges of the 21^st century – we won’t get this with the Conservative Party.