DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER John Prescott has thrown down the gauntlet to the north of England by telling it to stop whingeing and start acting if it wants to deliver the Northern Way regeneration initiative.

Speaking at the Property and the Northern Way conference at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, Mr Prescott, MP for Hull East, demanded to see some quick wins on his vision by the beginning of next year.

But he warned that it would not be achieved by "whingeing about the regional divide or pretending that somehow the north will get richer if we make the south poorer".

"There's nothing inevitable about regional inequalities," he said.

"We have the potential - the people, the leadership, the investment and the infrastructure.

"And we have the energy and the enthusiasm. What we have to do is capture that".

The 320-strong audience of developers, agents and public sector officials were left in no doubt that Prescott wanted inter-region and inter-city rivalries to be put aside for good.

The Northern Way envisages a £100 million growth fund and a development corridor stretching from Liverpool to Hull and north to Newcastle upon Tyne.

Mike Dove, partner in charge of property consultants Knight Frank in Leeds, one of the key sponsors of the conference, said: "This conference was all about joined-up thinking.

"That means joined up thinking between the public and private sectors, between politicians, developers and agents and, crucially, between all the towns and cities along the Northern Way. "Mr Prescott was right when he said that inter-regional and inter-city rivalries must be put aside. We must all work together to turn the Northern Way dream into a reality. And that work starts now," he added.

Saying he was a man in a hurry, the Deputy Prime Minister also called on planners to sharpen up their act.

"There is still too much inertia in the system. Too many planners spending too much time arguing about where the lamp posts go, rather than how we can best plan for sustainable growth. Stop whingeing about the regional divide and pretending that somehow the north will get richer if we make the south poorer," he said.

Prescott repeated his support for a development land tax. He reminded delegates that he was not the Chancellor, but said: "There is an awful lot of value created by our public money and some of it could be used to allow us to put more investment in."

He warned housebuilders that he was serious about his controversial plans to build homes for key workers at £60,000 each through using cheap, public sector land.

Updated: 11:07 Tuesday, October 26, 2004