ABSTRACT
Tyne and Wear is the smallest of the metropolitan counties, with a population of 1.1 million and an area of 54,000 hectares. Since the arrival of the Nissan car plant at Sunderland in the early 1980s there has been a marked increase in inward investment from the Far East and from mainland Europe in the north-east as a whole. Tyne and Wear has benefited from this, the most recent major project being the opening of the Siemens microchip production plant in North Tyneside. This chapter aims to set this changing framework within an evolving strategic planning context. It traces the development of Strategic Planning Guidance for the metropolitan area and the focus of evolving development plans before proceeding to evaluate the range of current issues that influence the management of its metropolitan future. The chapter concludes with a brief prognosis of the conurbation's future prospects within evolving regional frameworks for the North-East.
