Northbound - you raise some good points. the only thing that puzzles me - is there actually sufficient demand for a large new shopping centre or lots of new houses, such that a major piece of building works would be profitable for a developer ? Ditto to building industrial units, warehouses or anything else that might use up a large area of land.
As far as I can tell, the area around MME has been having a tough time with regards to the economy compared to the rest of the UK for quite a few years. Building a shiny new shopping mall may create jobs during construction, but retailers will only move in if they expect the local to have plenty of disposable income for the years to come. Houses only get sold if there are plenty of jobs in the area paying significantly more than just the minimum wage.
In my opinion, the only way to get Teesside moving, is a big slug of cash from Westminster to get the local economy growing, as happened with Liverpool in the late 20th century. Might have happened in 2006 when UK plc could do no wrong, but not likely for the next couple of years at least.
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 11th Dec 2011 at 17:53.