This being Valentine’s Day (the most genuine and least cynical of all the special days), you will have, no doubt, awakened with a warm sense of all being right with the world. You will have had nothing but optimism for the future as you lay in bed, the warm Springtime sun sneaking in around the curtain to warm your face.
Of course not, you awoke, cold, into the pitch darkness of this perpetual winter in which we live.
Anyway, have a lovely day. Here’s some data and stuff.
Our coastal communities are different from their coastal communities
I've been watching out for this one for a while, because I thought it might have something interesting in it - Census data comparing coastal ad non-coastal built up areas.
The analysis concludes as general points that coastal communities are three years older and less healthy than non-coastal areas.
That’s a finding which holds across the country, but there are some regional specifics.
When you look at the proportion in very good health, you can see that number tends to be bigger (darker shades on the map above) in the south and west of the country. 43.1% in Sunderland, several points higher in many of the Cornish coastal communities, for example.
There’s a definite East Coast flavour to the pattern, if not a specific North East one, as the same appears to be true on several other measures…proportion of 16-64 year olds who are working, unemployment, qualification rates, unpaid care.
The overall story is that while the coastal communities in places like the North East do mirror the national trends, there are variations - populations in coastal areas may tend to be older, but they aren’t all retirement villages. Nor are they all sleepy places where a quiet throughput of tourists keeps the economy going.
Labour market stats continue to be weird
The current phrase being used for the nation’s jobs figures is ‘official statistics in development’, because we’re still shifting from one methodology to another.
That’s meant some significant adjustments going on.
The latest stats have the North East with an unemployment rate of 4.3% - tying with the North West and behind only the East Midlands (5.1%) of the other English regions. The region’s employment rate is 71.6%, against a UK average of 75%. Economic inactivity is at 25.4%, against the UK average of 21.9%.
It’s worth noting that one of the things they’ve adjusted in an effort to make these statistics more accurate is the population estimates underneath them - that’s resulted in generally lower employment rates and higher inactivity rates than in previous sets of figures.
It’s still possible to look at trends using these adjusted figures though, and nationally over the past year, things are fairly stagnant. That’s a bit of a concern generally.
For the North East, we’ve still got positive movement, and things heading in the right direction - more in work and fewer unemployed or inactive.
We need to sustain that though, and keep creating jobs and getting people into them, in order to close up the gaps between us and the national averages.
A quick note on brownfield development
The government announced yesterday that they’d be amending planning rules to make it harder for local authorities to reject applications for housing on brownfield sites where they are missing their housebuilding targets. This will only apply to the 20 largest urban areas in the country, of which Newcastle is one.
The city is hitting housing targets though, I think, and my recollection (someone else, i.e. an actual planner, is welcome to correct me on both those points though), is that there’s not actually very much brownfield land left in Newcastle city - there are sites between Central Station and the river, around Forth Banks etc, but those are mostly in the pipeline somewhere.
Speaking of actual planners, Lichfields have blogged on this, and it’s the sort of thing you should read if this is your bag.
EY report on broadband take-up and TV
Apparently there’s some planning underway on the future of Digital Terrestrial Television. The switch off of analogue feels just barely behind us, and yet, here we are, talking about turning off the next thing.
One solution, apparently, is TV over broadband, with streaming a growing way of accessing programming.
So, EY have crunched some numbers on broadband take-up to see whether it’s a viable option now or in the future.
They conclude that high-speed broadband take-up will continue to rise, but that a significant proportion - about 1 in 5 in the North East for example - of the UK population will still not be able to access it come 2040.
You would be right to assume that those who aren’t accessing high-speed broadband by 2040 are disproportionately vulnerable groups such as the elderly, disabled or low-income households.
What I’ve been reading this week
I interviewed up and coming Tyneside musician, and already really good chef, Joe Allan for Pattern recently. Joe goes by ERNIE, and we talked about the parallels between music and hospitality, creativity, and how he put together his Cold Cuts EP. Then him and Chris cracked some eggs to make a delicious photography omelette. You can read / view that here.
What’s coming up in the next week or so?
Parliament is in recess until Monday, so no PMQs
Reaction to inflation figures from this morning
House price data a little bit later on this morning
There’s a by-election on Thursday - this one is Kingswood, to replace Tory MP Chris Skidmore, who stood down in protest against the issuing of new oil and gas extraction licenses for the North Sea. The seat is due to be abolished at the next General Election anyway, and Skidmore had previously announced he’d stand down then…as such, it’s entirely possible that whoever wins this will only be an MP for a matter of months
GDP, productivity and trade stats, all on Thursday too
Retail sales data on Friday
Estimates of the size of the green and low carbon economy in 2022, due out on Monday
Working with me
I’ve got a spell of paternity leave expected in March, followed by a period of frantically working as hard as possible in the months which follow to provide for our expanded family.
As such, it’s probably a good idea to chat to me fairly soon if you think I might be able to help with something early in the next financial year - I am, of course, keen to look a little bit beyond that too, so happy to chat in vague terms now and firm up later too.
You can find out more about me on my website.
You can email me on worroom@substack.com or arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk
I’m @arlenpettitt on Twitter, and you’ll find me on LinkedIn and on Bluesky too.