SUPPORTERS of the proposed directly-elected assembly for the North-East yesterday launched a concerted drive to win over wavering voters in the south of the region.

With Teesside looking increasingly likely to be the decisive battleground in the referendum campaign, Yes4The North-East yesterday staged the latest in a series of events in the area.

Yes chose Middlesbrough's Transporter Bridge to unveil its latest campaign adverts - based on the slogan Be Proud, Be Positive, Vote Yes - with backing from female supporters who were in the town to attend a debate staged by the North-East Women's Forum.

Three hours later, attention switched to Hartlepool, where Iain Wright, Labour's successful candidate in the town's Parliamentary by-election last week, shared a platform with the Liberal Democrat's northern regional chairman Ron Beadle to make a joint call in support of the proposed assembly.

Mr Beadle said: "The elected regional assembly campaign is not about party politics, it is about the future of the North-East.

"The Liberal Democrats are backing an elected regional assembly, as we believe it is the best way forward for Hartlepool and the whole North-East to develop and thrive in the future."

Professor John Tomaney, chairman of the Yes campaign, said: "We have been working with both political parties for more than a year now and the fact we have Labour and the Liberal Democrats here in Hartlepool today, so soon after a very competitive by-election, shows that there is a consensus around a directly-elected regional assembly."

Earlier this week, filming of the Yes campaign broadcast to be shown on television next week started in Middlesbrough and the campaign's roadshow is due to arrive in the town's Gilkes Street on Monday and then in Villiers Street, Hartlepool, on Wednesday.

Teesside is being viewed as critical to the Yes campaign because support for the assembly there is currently lower than most other parts of the region - fuelled in part by continued fears that any Assembly would be dominated by Tyneside.

According to polling carried out for Yes4TheNorth-East last month, support for the assembly in Tees Valley was running at 44 per cent, compared to 30 per cent intending to vote No - a sizeable majority in favour of the assembly, but still significantly behind the 51 per cent support the campaign enjoys in County Durham and 50 per cent in Tyne and Wear.

Last month, the Yes campaign recruited influential Mayor of Middlesbrough Ray Mallon as a high-profile supporter in the hope of picking up crucial votes on Teesside.

The first postal ballot papers for the referendum will be issued on October 18, with the result declared on November 4.

'No' campaign fears army of bureaucrats

AN expensive army of bureaucrats will be created in the region if the assembly gets the go-ahead, North-East Says No said yesterday.

The anti-assembly campaign group believes that the number of bureaucrats employed at the Scottish Parliament, and Welsh and London assemblies has risen by an average of 69 per cent since the organisations were set up.

North-East Says No chairman John Elliott said: "Whenever politicians create assemblies, they create new armies of bureaucrats, which attract more recruits and which create more expense every year.

"We all know that the regional assembly will have no real powers to improve the lives of ordinary people, so all these bureaucrats are going to do is attend meetings with each other and produce paperwork."

Mr Elliott added: "It is becoming increasingly clear that creating a regional assembly would just lead to more politicians, more bureaucrats and more Council Tax."

However, Yes campaigners said their opponents had got their figures wrong.

Ross Forbes, campaign director of Yes4The North-East, said: "These figures are a work of fiction.

"A regional assembly will be able to streamline bureaucracy and remove duplication.

"The No campaign fails to mention that is exactly what happened in Wales since devolution while at the same time Wales has improved its economic performance markedly."