According to an exclusive poll commissioned by The Northern Echo, the North-East is on the verge of saying No to a directly-elected regional assembly. Political Editor Chris Lloyd reports on the different voting intentions between the sexes and the generations, but finds the region united in its lack of enthusiasm.

THE North-East is proud of its identity. Nearly 90 per cent of people told pollsters Mori that they were proud to live in the region.

But that regional pride seems not to translate into a desire to have a regional assembly.

Indeed, the region appears surprisingly united in not wanting a new assembly.

It had been assumed that people in Tyneside would be more in favour of what has been called a Geordie Parliament than people in the Tees Valley. But our poll says no part of the North-East wants an assembly.

Tyne and Wear residents are the most warm, but are utterly undecided, split down the middle with 38 per cent saying Yes and 38 per cent No.

People in the Tees Valley are the most sceptical, with 28 per cent saying Yes and 46 per cent No.

Delve further into the poll, and the idea of a regional identity begins to fall apart a little, and when it comes to where an assembly should be based, the sub-regions appear to be scrapping among themselves.

In Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, a large majority of people (57 per cent) think any assembly should be based in Newcastle.

In Durham, the most favoured location (45 per cent) is Durham.

And in the Tees Valley, people are in two or three minds.

Their preferred option is Durham (25 per cent), but not far behind is Newcastle (21 per cent), although a sizeable minority (19 per cent) wants Middlesbrough as its base.

But then, it was in the Tees Valley - by which we mean the council districts of Darlington, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Hartlepool - where people confessed to be the least proud to say that they were living in the North-East.

Our poll throws up many other interesting gender and generation divides that run through the region.

For example, men are pretty much set against the assembly -34 per cent will vote Yes and 50 per cent No.

Women, though, are divided in their opinions on the issue -36 per cent will vote Yes and 36 per cent will vote No.

People aged 16 to 24 are overwhelmingly in favour of the assembly, with 56 per cent saying Yes and 20 per cent No. However, only 20 per cent of these younger people say they are certain to vote.

In contrast, people aged over 65 are overwhelmingly against the assembly, with 58 per cent saying No and 25 per cent saying Yes.

Sixty-six per cent of the older generation say they are certain to vote.

As well as age and sex, these divides also appear to be about knowledge, because all the indicators in the poll suggest that the less you say you know about the assembly, the more likely that you are to be in favour of it.

Only one per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds say they know "a great deal" about an assembly, and 47 per cent say they know "nothing at all". Women also think they are in the dark. Only two per cent know "a great deal", and 80 per cent say they know "not very much" or "nothing at all".

This suggests that either the Government's "Your Say" information campaign has been a failure or that respondents were being modest.

Evidence for the latter is that 69 per cent of people recognised as true the statement that "it has been announced that a referendum will be held in this region to decide whether or not an elected regional assembly should be introduced".

But knowledge of the councils shake-up also proves to be very low, with 79 per cent of people saying they know "not very much" or "nothing at all" (93 per cent of 16-to-24-year-olds are in this category).

It is this lack of knowledge that Mori's experts pick out when asked to assess the six key messages of their research:

* Overall awareness of proposals for an elected regional assembly is low.

* Awareness that the referendum is coming is higher.

* Opposition for an assembly outweighs support, and opposition is stronger among those who claim to know "a great deal" or "a fair amount" about the proposals.

* Just over two in five people say they are certain to vote in the forthcoming referendum.

* However, those who say they are certain to vote are more likely to say they will vote against an elected regional assembly.

* North-East residents are twice as likely to chose Newcastle over Durham as the home for any elected regional assembly.

Mori interviewed a representative sample of 1,013 residents aged 16 and over in the North-East. Research was carried out by phone between October 11 and 12. At the aggregate level, results are reliable to within plus or minus three percentage points.