What promises has the new North of Tyne Mayor made?

Labour's Jamie Driscoll begins his first week as the first ever North of Tyne Mayor on Tuesday.

In his own words, he says he's a proud socialist and has campaigned to "level the playing field" to help those on lower incomes.

Here we examine some of his manifesto commitments and look at the promises he made on his campaign to become Mayor.

Community Wealth Building

The first policy commitment in Jamie Driscoll's manifesto. Community wealth building centres on a set of policy interventions aimed at spending money locally with the aim of driving up wages and jobs.

He cites Preston as an example of where the approach has worked and referenced the fact it was recently rated the UK's most improved city by services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

So how then does he propose to ensure that money spent is spent locally?

In his manifesto he pledges to "create a procurement framework", which he says will help enable small and local businesses to bid for high value contracts which are often snapped up by bigger companies like Carillion and Interserve.

Another of Jamie Driscoll's proposals is to establish a People's Bank, which will - according to his manifesto - "do business only with people and organisations in the North East."

The pledge is to establish the People's Bank, which he says will take around two and a half years to finish the regulation process, to enable local people and businesses access to local money.

The new mayor says the bank will be owned by its customers and offer a full range of banking services including current accounts, mortgage lending and business banking.

Other pledges surrounding community wealth building include a drive to increase exports, more support for worker-owned businesses and making the North of Tyne Combined Authority a Real Living Wage employer.

Climate change and environmental policies

Jamie Driscoll has echoed Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's sentiment that we are now at a point of 'climate emergency'. In his manifesto he writes:

A notable campaign promise is to make the North of Tyne area a net-zero carbon region by 2030. To help achieve this the Mayor plans to convene a Climate Change Liaison Group (CCLG) to produce a strategy aimed at tackling local environmental issues.

In sticking to a theme of local ownership the Mayor has said he will set up community owned energy companies designed to reduce energy bills and protect customers from being ripped off.

He's also pledged to "asset lock" the community owned companies, a move which is intended to prevent the business from ever being privatised.

The manifesto also contains promises to improve the North of Tyne area's public transport system. These include the introduction of a joint ticketing system (similar to London's Oyster Card setup), the development of a new public transport app and a pledge to expand the capacity of the East Coast Main Line to improve train speeds to London and Edinburgh.

There's also a personal promise from the new Mayor not to have a driver:

'Set up Community Hubs'

As part of a plan to "revitalise local life", the manifesto contains pledges to set up so-called community hubs, places where members of the community can gather for a variety of reasons.

One of the pledges forming this is to turn underused public buildings into places local people can use. The spaces could be used to provide training for adults, work space, offer free Wi-Fi and act as a formal place for community meetings. The manifesto also suggests using community hubs as a venue for youth activities.

'Build Affordable Homes'

The new Mayor has pledged to build publicly owned housing that will be "offered at a fair rent." A housing cooperative structure has been proposed which is where the people who live in the houses are the people who own them.

A Community Land Trust (CLT), a not-for-profit company that develops and manages the land, is the Mayor's idea of controlling land for affordable housing.

'Meaningful Adult Education'

The manifesto's final promises centre on improving adult education provision. The new mayor has pledged to boost formal training in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects and work with third sector organisations to help adults who have missed earlier learning opportunities.

There's also a promise to "offer the best possible careers advice" to young people leaving school, college or university and work alongside the Local Enterprise Partnership to link education with business.

In his manifesto the new mayor has pledged to tie in environmental issues into education programmes, creating a form of environmental education. He's promised to "recruit a team of dedicated educators" who can teach school pupils about issues facing the environment.