Are we really going to let the sun set on our vital Energy Estuary as a wholly politically-backed economic entity?
“Fog on the Humber” was the description given by chamber chief executive Ian Kelly at the recent AGM, as with furrowed-brow he outlined the complexities of every possibility other than the status quo.
Thankfully he didn’t belt out a Gazza-inspired modification of a pop song best consigned to Geordie folklore alongside Jimmy Nail, but if government now insists on single local enterprise partnership representation for local authorities, then the fat lady - rather than long-serving business leader - may be warming up her vocal chords. It could be soon all over.
As Kelly pointed out, the smashing of the ‘Red Wall’ in December’s General Election lost two Humber-backing MPs, replacing them with Greater Lincolnshire advocates, strengthening the Conservative-run South Bank councils’ south-looking status which came to the fore this week.
Politically, be it in their hearts - or their minds when it comes to polling fears - there is little support for a pan-Humber arrangement that devolution would further endorse. A return to a Humberside in any form apparently doesn’t whet the appetite of the voter.
Yet I’m one, and so are the business leaders who benefit from joined-up thinking on decarbonisation and dredging, transport and tech.
I grew up with the crest on my school books, I work the region like many I speak with and write about, and there’s a clear reason why. From fishing to ships, offshore wind to the process industries, the big business sectors that drive the economy and give us the identity we can’t seem to swallow, crave the unity.
Yes Hull is the city of the region, yes it often gets the headlines, and yes that doesn’t sit will with Grimsby folk particularly - but it is almost developed out. Look at the South Humber Bank with that big space in the right place for a fifth port, vast hectares of economic development land beyond and far better road and potential for rail.
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We need to think about those who will inhabit these untapped areas, and what they want, rather than pander to shop keepers, builders or other generic businesses where regional cohesion matters little.
The early arriving Orsted (then Dong Energy) and Siemens couldn't understand the fierce competition between both banks. ABP has a 'One Humber' approach.
In the slow-burn Grimsby Town Deal we’ve heard talk of a community 'turning its back on the water for too long' - yet now civic leaders are running up Steep Hill in Lincoln. I know rising sea levels is an issue, but better to address it together.
Business heads to Lincoln and the market towns of the shire for geographical spread and precious little else. Tourism is resort specific, farming is as aligned to York and East Riding as it is to Stamford and South Kesteven - and closer too.
Do we want Grimsby and Scunthorpe to be big fish in a pond where we don’t have that much in common with the other species, or do we grab all that has been achieved around energy and the low carbon agenda and ensure we’re plugged in where it counts?
I have issue with some of the argument too. North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire are the two most closely tied authorities, be it back office civic duties (some would say it should be one), transport or travel to work, Tweak the boundary to the A15 though, and the huge refineries where most employed I’d wage live in Grimsby, and you’d have a different picture altogether when it comes to the latter.
And while steel may sit with heavy manufacturing - an island industry in the Humber’s midst - the CO2 it belches out is an issue the Humber is well on with addressing.
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This political place-making shouldn’t change it, but it surely makes the funding streams and the backing all the more complex?
The Budget was the big show in the capital this week, but the meeting that has fractured a decade’s work was equally as important for this patch, later in the afternoon.
Emerging from it we had Grimsby’s new MP Lia Nici treating us on Twitter to Bomber Command praise (rolling the clock back 75 years to the county’s great British success story) and Cleethorpes’ Martin Vickers following up an earlier Brexit picture with the news the Humber “deal is dead” with Greater Lincolnshire off the starting blocks. Are these confrontational issues where we draw parallel lines?
Could it be a generation thing? Born into Cleethorpes, Humberside, England, Great Britain, Europe a naturally affinity is there for me. For those around before or influenced by those who were, not so. But at 40 - and many with six years on me - my generation can no longer be classed as the young upstarts. Enhanced by working in a business passionate about covering both banks, and the familiarity of Humberside Police, Humberside Fire and even the BBC, the Humber has always felt the obvious make-up.
Yes we are rivals, hopefully soon on the football pitch too - and I’m not talking Scunthorpe and North Ferriby – but like most tribes, what makes us bicker most are the stark similarities.
What we lack on the South Bank are the Tim Rix, Paul Sewell, Lord Prescott and Lord Haskins-type characters, champions of a wider area. Our businesses tend to be controlled from boardrooms in London, Houston, Paris and Copenhagen, rather than Hull, Hessle or Cottingham.
I watch with concern, as well as interest.