The debate over a regional planning blueprint for the North-East has drawn into sharp focus some of the issues which lay behind last year's rejection of an elected regional assembly.

Chief among these are the concept of a regional identity. One thing the regional assembly campaign proved was that, outside of Newcastle, the idea of being a North-Easterner doesn't really exist. The tensions and rivalries between different areas like Wearside, Teesside and Weardale and Teesdale are far greater than any sense of being a region with truly common interests. That's not to suggest that these areas are constantly at each other's throats, but there is competition and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The trouble with documents like this draft "regional spatial strategy" being put together by the unelected North-East Assembly is that it is planned centrally and that almost inevitably means peripheral areas don't get the consideration/acknowledgement/attention they feel they deserve.

This has manifested itself most strikingly in Teesdale. Here the grand regional plan envisages stricter limits on business and housing growth than the district council thinks appropriate. Teesdale thinks it is being put in an economic straitjacket with the development being pinpointed on the urban areas of the region

The urban areas aren't happy either. Darlington has issues with the strategy, as does Middlesbrough, and no doubt other areas do too. The tensions within the region are all too evident and the North-East Assembly is flying in the face of regional reality if it thinks it can resolve these tensions and be left with a meaningful document.