This week, Newcastle City Council held its Annual General Meeting – an event that might seem routine, but this year, is anything but. Labour remains the administration but crucially, without a majority.
In less than 11 months, the people of Newcastle will return to the ballot box for all-out local elections that could define the city’s trajectory for decades.
What happens now will shape what happens next
This is not a time for vague manifesto pledges cooked up for election leaflets. This is a time for vision. For clarity. For leadership.
When I was elected Leader of Newcastle City Council, I did so with one singular focus: Newcastle. Not Westminster. Not the prospect of higher office. Newcastle. The city where I raised my children. The city I love.
What I found when I arrived in office shocked me. A council of this size and significance operating without key strategies in place. No long-term vision. No clear direction. No economic strategy. A city with immense potential – but no roadmap.
So, we got to work
We delivered the city’s first Inclusive Economic Strategy – not just a document, but a declaration: that economic growth must serve all of us. Prosperity isn’t measured only in GDP, but in wellbeing, fairness, and opportunity.
We made Newcastle a Real Living Wage employer and began the journey to become a Real Living Wage City.
We placed Public Health and Wellbeing as the foundation, forging a unique partnership with Gateshead and appointing a joint Director of Public Health.
We launched a bold Anti-Poverty Strategy – because after years of rising child poverty, we refused to accept it as inevitable.
We raised the city’s cultural and international profile – securing the MOBO Awards, bringing Housing Services and Parks back in-house, initiating a partnership with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library (because stories shape futures, and I’ve seen that power first-hand as a long-time trustee of the National Centre for Children’s Books). We supported Generator and Warner Music to invest in the city’s creative infrastructure and developed a shared global strategy with Gateshead.
And above all we began to plan – strategically, long-term, with the people of Newcastle at the centre. It wasn’t perfect. No administration ever is. But it was purposeful. It was bold. It had momentum.
A city-in-waiting
Now, as I look at the city from the outside, I find myself asking: where is that purpose now?
Where is the vision that unites our strengths – from health innovation and green energy to digital creativity and cultural leadership?
Where is the leadership that speaks for Newcastle – not waiting on Whitehall, not watching the Combined Authority grow with appointment after appointment, but setting the tone and ambition for the city itself? We are becoming a city that waits. Waits for permission. Waits for policy. Waits for someone else to lead.
But Newcastle has never needed permission to lead. And it shouldn’t start now. We don’t need empire-building regionalism that forgets where the real power of the North East lives – in its cities, in its communities, in its people.
Time to make decisions for the future of Newcastle
The next 11 months will reveal who has a plan for this city. Not a slogan. Not a party line. A plan. Who will lead with ambition and courage? Who will speak for Newcastle – not just through the lens of national politics, but through the hopes and needs of the people who live here?
This moment will shape Newcastle’s future – not through photo opportunities or press releases; but through action, through what we prioritise, what we stand for, and who we stand with.
To be clear, this isn’t a pitch from me. It’s a plea. A challenge. That those seeking to lead this city do so with purpose, clarity, and unwavering focus on what Newcastle can become.
My hope is simple: that we embrace the leadership this city deserves.
Because Newcastle is not a city in waiting.
It’s a city of culture, industry, story, and power.
It led the world before. It can do it again.
But only if we stop drifting – and start deciding.
