SHADOW CHANCELLOR VISITS SHIELDS ROAD

5.16.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 20th Apr 2009

Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable visited Shields Road recently to inspect a new social housing scheme.

The scheme for single people has been set up on the site of the former Beavans store on the corner of Heaton Park Road.

The Liberal Democrat deputy leader joined Greg Stone, Parliamentary spokesman for Newcastle East, to meet apprentices and builders who have been helping to refit the building.

They discussed the Lib Dem council's approach to delivering hundreds of new homes in Newcastle after none were built - and thousands destroyed - when Labour ran the council.

Greg Stone said: "Vince has acquired a well deserved reputation as the politician who has consistently got it right on the economy when Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling have got it very badly wrong.

"He was very interested in the steps the Lib Dem council is taking to tackle the recession and to kick-start provision of more affordable housing by acquiring unsold private developments.

"He and I very much welcome new kinds of affordable rented housing like this scheme on Shields Road."