WHEN the North-East voted on the idea of an elected regional assembly last year, the result was a resounding No.

Although Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott spoke at Labour's spring conference of the possibility of it being revived at some distant point in the future, the idea of elected regional assemblies is dead for quite some time.

But the debate about the right way forward for the region remains very much alive. In many ways, it is more relevant now than ever.

At the weekend, The Northern Echo took that debate to Labour's conference at The Sage in Gateshead by organising a fringe meeting called Life After The Big No.

We organised the meeting because we believe there remains an urgent need for the region to come together to fight its corner because - as we said consistently during the regional government debate - the status quo is doing nothing more than allowing the north-south divide to grow.

One of the great ironies of the past year is that while the North-East said No to an elected assembly, it still has an unelected North-East Assembly, made up of 72 members.

It is just one of a mind-boggling array of quangos spending public money in the region with precious little accountability.

We still have a region which is held back by the divisions and jealousies of the current structure of local government. And there is still no clear leadership on how we will pull together.

Indeed, the North-East Assembly's Regional Spatial Strategy - setting out a vision of how the region will develop over the next 15 years - has simply served to stir up the same old rivalries among the local authorities.

We do not pretend that our meeting at The Sage produced any magic wand answers to the North-East's challenges. But there was unanimous agreement that the status quo will not do.

And, at least, it served as a reminder of the need to keep a vital debate alive.