ABSTRACT
In 1987 Mrs Thatcher appeared in national newspapers and on the nation’s TV screens, posing against the background of some of the devastated old industrial areas on Teesside. Her visit there drew attention to two things. First, the changed political climate that underlaid new central government policy responses, such as Urban Development Corporations, to the problems of de-industrialization in inner areas of conurbations. As she said at the time: ‘We are setting out again to be ahead of our time…where you have initiative, talent and ability, the money follows’. Secondly, it provided a graphic illustration of the dereliction, unemployment and poverty that have swept through the area in the last decade as a consequence of industrial decline. The pictures evoked memories of the 1930s on Teesside in places such as Stockton. Depression in the 1930s and 1980s contrasted powerfully with the major expansive boom of the nineteenth century and with the hope and optimism, in and for Teesside, in the early 1960s. Not so long ago it seemed that Teesside could anticipate a prosperous future, one of full employment and rising affluence. Centre-stage in this image of the future stood central and local government, integrally involved in transforming the area via implementation of a modernization project, for which there was very broadly based support from trades unions and private sector alike, and across the whole party political spectrum. The legacy of the old nineteenth-century economy was to be radically reconstructed. The new economy would still be focused around the chemicals and steel industries, but these would be transformed by massive state-subsidized investment to provide a centre of technologically sophisticated modern manufacturing industry. New industries would diversify employment opportunities. Furthermore, the built environment would be transformed by local authority planning and expanded
public expenditure on roads, houses, shopping centres and educational and health facilities. Modernization was seen as embracing all aspects of economic and social life.
