Mind The Gap

A Guardian news story last week revealed a north-south divide in the numbers of antidepressants prescribed by doctors each year. Of particular note were prescription levels in the North East, with boroughs like Redcar and Cleveland, and towns such as Middlesbrough issuing as many as 120,137 prescriptions per year for every 100,000 inhabitants. Since 2007 a state-funded programme called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies has been training therapists to tackle depression as an alternative to medication, surely something which ought logically to have been targeted at the most highly-medicated areas of the country. The North East, however, was only included in the third wave of IAPT introduction, meaning that towns like Darlington won’t have trained staff until October this year.

I don’t know anything about the prescription of antidepressants, or the cost and funding of alternative therapies. What struck me about this story is that it is just the latest in a long, long line of stories highlighting a serious inequality in various types of government funding (and various types of government funding cuts). The IAPT delay is just one more instance where the North East in particular is neglected when it clearly ought to be made a priority.

In September 2010 a BBC-commissioned study revealed that Middlesbrough and the areas surrounding it would be “least resilient” to the economic shock of public sector cuts. These cuts are now being implemented, and the £15.2 million slashed from Redcar and Cleveland Council’s budget means 8.8% less will be spent on the population this coming year. The national average is around half of this. The area reported as being most resilient to the cuts was Elmbridge in Surrey. The cuts to Elmbridge Borough Council’s budget topped out at £0.7 million, 3.9 per cent.

A text I received recently from a particularly charming friend highlighted the situation perfectly, I feel. “Just drove past your hometown on the way to Newcastle” it read. “It looks f*cking disgusting.” I can’t deny that there are areas of the North East in a serious state of disrepair, and that large swathes of land are devoted to industrial estates. What is truly disgusting however, is the way in which an area of the country which has contributed so much to the economy over the years can be so dreadfully neglected now.

Why, in the 20 years since the North East lost its major industries, have towns like Middlesbrough incessantly been referred to as “state-dependent” yet seen little fundamental change to their situation? Why are they persistently neglected in areas where they are most in need of support, and their inhabitants’ choices constantly limited? Unemployment rates in Middlesbrough are still over 10%, and the lack of appealing graduate jobs in particular is especially significant considering the increasing success of Teesside University. How can sustainability and development even be an option when there are so few incentives for high earners to stay in the area?

These are not questions that I have the answers to, but they are questions which urgently need to be asked. For now, the budget provides a handy excuse for the way the North East is getting left behind, but the focus of economic recovery when it does come ought to be on those areas most affected by the cuts. Hopefully then there will be no excuse not to provide the North East with services when they are required and can do most good, rather than four years after they have been introduced to the rest of the country.