The former Communities Secretary told the M.E.N. she she would fight to make sure local people get access to the top jobs and facilities being created there.
The Salford and Eccles MP said: “There are 15,000 jobs at MediaCity – I don’t want the ones for my constituents just to be as cleaners in the hotels. I want them getting technical apprenticeships too. The BBC have a responsibility to include the public.”
Ms Blears also said the development must not be an isolated devleopment like Canary Wharf.
She said: “We have to make sure that when we spend money on regeneration it doesn’t end up as somewhere like Canary Wharf which is really cut off from the communities around it.
People already living in the area have to feel ownership, not isolation.
“It’s all very well saying you want the public to come but to do that we have got to make links with youngsters at schools, for example, so they bring their mums and dads.”
In a speech to regeneration chiefs, Ms Blears was today stressing the importance of a long-term commitment from the government to invest in the area and drive regeneration in Salford and the region. And she said the BBC, who will make the site their new home next year, had a responsibility to ensure that the local community benefits from its presence.
Austerity
She was telling the two-day Northern Regeneration Summit at Manchester Central: “We may be living in an age of austerity but it would be very short-sighted indeed to cut public investment too deep and too fast and to put the development of our new industries back so that they are unable to compete globally.
“As well as being serious about cutting the deficit we have to be serious about aspiration, investing in our talent and ideas which will lay the foundations for future growth.”
She also said there was ‘no reason’ why Salford could not compete with global centres for creative industries like Singapore and Seoul.
She said that it was vital MediaCity provided affordable space for fledgling British businesses, citing as an example The Sharp Project, in east Manchester – a former warehouse given a new lease life as a media hub.
Ms Blears said: “No longer will it be automatic for any graduate to have to go south to have an exciting career in digital and media. This shouldn’t just be for the north, it should be a gateway to Europe and the USA. I want a commitment from government that they support our strategy for the area.” Tweet
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So does Bleary Hazel believe that a 'technical aprenticeship' is a high end job, or is she proposing that the BBC makes some of her constituents director general, head of drama, or programming? I can just imagine the result of program making, a costume drame from the Langworthy? A sitcom set in Lower Broughton where every time the characters come home they find it's been broken in again?
And this would be reason 193 why New Lie-bour failed. This obsession with giving someone a job because they have a particular background is nonsense. A person should be given a job because they have the skills/experience/qualifications to do the job well; not because they have a particular background, sexuality, gender, skin colour, racial background or any other label that these crazy lot seem to think we can be pigeon-holed with.
The stubborn belief of self-entitlement that is the hallmark of the New Lie-bour years must be stamped out. If you want a job, work bloody hard and go get it like everyone else.
I am sure that the BBC will recruit the best people for each role regardless of where they come from. As they are using public money I hope that they spend it wisely rather than choosing somebody purely just because they are from Salford and because an MP tells them how they should recruit.
Then again Labour has a postman as the Shadow Chancellor - no economics degree, no time spent as Finace Director at a plc, nothing. Not qualified for the job. Just as I am not qualified to be a surgeon.
As for integrating with the local community well whenever I read about the Lowry and suchlike all you hear from Salfordians is 'it isn'y for us it is for psoh snobs'. Engagement and isolation works both ways.
Blears should stop this daft /north/south divide claptrap. It sounds outdated.
what ever she says most people take with a pinch of salt!!!
"The BBC have a responsibility to include the public.”
Yes, and all there employees currently constitute 'the public'
But 'top' jobs won't be for all, because that's never been the way at the BBC, an arch-proponent of the 'who you know, not what you know' mentality which runs completely contrary to its facade of inclusivity.
Perhaps she could give some advice on expenses