Is the North-east capable of seeing beyond the oil and gas game?
Or did we put all our eggs in one basket and believe the golden goose would not grow too old to continuing laying?
The £825 million City Region Deal, said to be ready to stimulate the local economy and generate 3,300 jobs, is a positive step.
Yet, everywhere I looked I read the words oil and gas.
A new technology centre will be with us early next year and, according to Economy Secretary Keith Brown, it will “support Aberdeen’s position as a global oil and gas hub”.
Meanwhile, Lord Dunlop, a junior minister at the Scotland Office, insists the deal “is a vote of confidence in the long term prospect of our oil and gas industry in the North-east”.
I think the good lord is behind the times.
Just ask the growing list of oil-related companies shedding jobs and leaking money or the tens of thousands of workers shown the door in the last two or more years.
It is to Sir Ian Wood that we must turn for balance and common sense.
He says the region has to either diversify and broaden its economy or “become a historical monument to the oil and gas era”. He did not need to add that monuments don’t bring in cash or put food on the table.
All of which indicates that the protagonists at the launch of the City Region Deal were singing from different hymn sheets.
The promised £825m will improve infrastructure and help the North-east weather an economic storm yet to reach its height.
But when the leader of Aberdeenshire Council describes the region as the “economic powerhouse of the Scottish and UK economies” we must recognise that he is living in the past.
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