TOMORROW will see the dawning of a new age for the North-East.

For the first mayor of the newly formed North of Tyne Combined Authority will be crowned during a ceremony at Northumbria University’s Sport Central.

There has been a lot of noise made from the five candidates in the build-up to today’s elections, but there is still a of confusion about what the mayor will actually bring to the people of Northumberland, North Tyneside and Newcastle.

The mayor will call the Helix science and technology park in Newcastle City Centre home, alongside combined authority staff once the building is completed next year, comes at a cost of a yearly salary of £65,000. So what work will he do to justify the pay packet?

One main benefit of the new mayorship will be the ability to take away some devolved powers from Central Government to make decisions more locally.

The mayor will be able to make executive decisions on transport, housing and tourism which would impact across the three authorities.

A £600m investment fund will be provided over a 30-year period from Westminster to support job creation throughout the region, on top of a £100m investment agreed by the authority’s cabinet over the next five years.

The authority is predicting that 10,000 new job roles will be created across the area by 2050.

Just last week, the authority sent out a bold statement stating it wanted each school within the three authorities to be ranked as good or outstanding by Ofsted as part of the Education Improvement Challenge – only the third area in the UK to undertake such a challenge alongside London and Manchester.

The mayor can designate specific development areas across the region and will also have the powers to purchase land for the authority to be used for regeneration.

He will act as a champion and a voice for the three authority areas on a national and international stage.

Once the mayor is elected tomorrow, he will sit in office for five years until 2024, but the term will be four years from then onwards so the that the North of Tyne representative is elected at the same time as the mayors for other UK major cities and regions.

The mayor will head up a cabinet of six members; two members from each constituent council.

Peter Jackson and Wayne Daley will represent Northumberland, while Nick Forbes and Joyce McCarty will sit for Newcastle City Council and North Tyneside’s elected mayor Norma Redfearn and deputy mayor Bruce Pickard will represent their authority.

They will be joined on the cabinet by a non-voting representative from the North East Local Enterprise Partnership.

Cabinet members will consult on some of the mayor’s decisions, while some will by subject to scrutiny by the authority’s overview and scrutiny committee, which will be chaired by Berwick West councillor Gregah Roughead.

People will go to the polls to choose their preferred choice for the first mayor between 7am and 10pm today. There are a total of 222 polling stations in Northumberland.

The Northumberland count will take place at Blyth Sports Centre from 10am tomorrow with the result being announced in a ceremony at Sport Central in the afternoon.

It is anticipated the result will be revealed by 1pm. However, it may not be until 2.30pm if the count goes to a second stage.