Sometimes government indifference, however parochial, can speak volumes about two-speed England, national priorities, and the absence of any regional policy, from spatial planning strategy to focused development support.
A tale of two river crossings
Recently I tried to capture this omission, at the heart of government, in an opinion piece for The Guardian, encapsulated in a tale of two river crossings and, thus, of two nations: on the one hand, a defining national landmark across the Tyne in need of an extra £6 million from the government; on the other, an ambitious plan being pushed by the Chancellor for a Lower Thames crossing at an estimated cost of at least £6 billion.
Somewhat forlorn, partly covered in scaffolding, the majestic, rusting Tyne Bridge linking Newcastle and Gateshead is undergoing a long-delayed, four-year restoration meant to be completed for its centenary in 2028. The last government initially promised £35 million, towards the £41 million cost – and while the Prime Minister recently described the structure as an ‘iconic part of the Newcastle and Gateshead skyline’, he refused to offer any assurance that a remaining £6 million would be forthcoming in a review of infrastructure projects being undertaken by the Department for Transport. Local councils, cash-strapped and facing another round of austerity, are dismayed.
No such reluctance for the proposed Thames crossing, involving a 2.6-mile tunnel – the longest of its kind in Britain – from the Chancellor Rachel Reeves. She says it represents ‘infrastructure the country desperately needs’ – unlike, say, a 13-mile upgrade of the A1 in Northumberland, north of the Tyne Bridge from single to dual-carriageway. Plans, approved by the last government, have been abandoned because its £500 million cost, disputed by some, apparently offers ‘poor value for money and limited economic benefits’. County councillors, and business groups, are aghast.
Putting aside the obvious question that a safer, free-flowing road, rather than a dangerous mix of dual and single carriageway, might actually encourage investment in a less-favoured region, the political messaging from ministers is dreadful. People feel betrayed, when £68 million has already been spent on preparatory work and buying land. Labour stalwarts in ‘red wall’ seats are angry and restless.
Once again a skewed Whitehall ‘cost benefit’ analysis – crudely calculating that the greater South East will assuredly grow while much of the North will inevitably lag behind – has downplayed the potential for regional growth. Decent infrastructure, after all, sends out positive signals to investors while underpinning the foundational, social economy and the services which sustain vibrant communities, particularly in areas which have barely recovered from the recession of the early 1980s, let alone subsequent financial crises and further mass redundancies.
A divided nation
For much of my working life, I’ve been chronicling the injustices of what was – and remains – one of the most divided nations in the OECD, with only Turkey, Colombia and Hungary languishing below us. Sure, deep regional inequalities can be traced back to Victorian times, with North-South divisions intensifying in the 1920s-30s. This prompted governments to respond with a raft of measures from targeted help for ‘special areas’ – notably, the North East, Scotland and Wales – to directing new industries to regions labelled less-favoured. This brought some stability until the early 1980s, when the gap between the greater South East and the North widened considerably – and has stubbornly remained so, in spite of valiant efforts by Labour after 1997.
It’s 20 years since I chaired the TCPA’s cross-party commission – Connecting England – which examined in detail the uneven economy of a divided England and put the case for a national framework to identity ‘future development needs and priorities.’ It immediately caught the attention of the late Lord John Prescott, former deputy prime minister, who created nine regional development agencies in England, or RDAs, with substantial budgets to create jobs, renew older industrial areas, and clear derelict land.
I noted, in the introduction, that without a national framework to guide key projects – road and rail investment, the location of ports and airports, regional planning, for instance – the country would… ‘drift directionless, reinforcing a belief…that the winner takes all.’ And so, it is now proving again.
Prescott, a fan of the TCPA, took on board our case for greater emphasis on regional economies away from London, producing a ‘Northern Way’ way growth strategy around a Trans-Pennine corridor and a specialist team to take it forward. But in 2010, a Tory-Lib Dem government scrapped the RDAs, regional planning strategies and all. Lord (Eric) Pickles, then local government and planning secretary, famously labelled all things regional ‘Stalinist’.
Lacking a plan
On taking office eight months ago, the Labour government inherited a country denied a regional policy and the essential institutions capable of addressing the North-South divide. I assumed they had a plan to address England and its profound regional inequalities.
Ringing in my ears were comments in an interview I had two years’ ago for the TCPA Journal with the late Lord Bob Kerslake, former head of the civil service and, before that, chief executive of Sheffield City Council. He told me that… ‘comprehensive long-term intervention’ was needed to begin turning round the economies of post-industrial areas, away from the big cities.
It took the Chancellor Rachel Reeves to confirm recently there’s no meaningful strategy aside from promising to go ‘further and faster’ to drive growth in the greater South East: backing expansion of Heathrow with a third runway, reviving plans for a multi-billion pound Oxford-Cambridge high-tech arc with new communities plus rail link and, of course, supporting that Lower Thames crossing linking the M2 in Kent with the M25 in Essex.
Winner takes all?
Not surprisingly, many in the North are now asking if, yet again a government, grasping at old Treasury straws, is assuming London and the greater South East will drive national growth in the faint hope it will filter down to other regions – no matter that there’s precious little evidence ‘trickle down’ from South to North or, more accurately ‘trickle up’, has worked in the past.
We are left, then, with the dismissive tones of National Highways, which runs major roads in England, towards that abandoned A1 scheme – poor value for money for what is still a premier North-South route from London to Edinburgh – contrasting with their upbeat attempt to claim the new Thames crossing will unlock growth by doubling road capacity east of London ‘to better link the North and the Midlands with the ports of the South East.’ For me, it marks the return of that ‘winner takes all’ philosophy neatly encapsulated in two river crossings. But it needn’t be this way.
The devolution agenda
Mention regional policy to anyone in the government these days, and they’ll turn to their devolution agenda – yet more disruptive local government reorganisation and their one big idea to create a network of sub-regional mayors, and combined authorities, through mergers of counties, building on the success of Greater Manchester under mayor Andy Burnham and a small number of, arguably, less successful metro authorities elsewhere. But, frankly, action is needed more immediately.
While recreating RDAs is a non-starter – not least because the economy today is in much worse shape than post-1997 and the Prescott years – the government can at least make a start by recreating a national regeneration agency.
They can do this by re-working the housing quango Homes England (itself created from the rump of the former national agency English Partnerships) to make it a genuine regeneration body once again, partnering cash-strapped local councils facing more years of austerity and, most importantly, shouldering some of the risks in assembling land for redevelopment.
They should enlist the support of the well-endowed Crown Estate, a semi-state agency under the wing of the Treasury, now making a record surplus as the country’s largest property and land enterprise. Aside from its cash pile, it has considerable expertise to be tapped and could easily help create regional outposts for a putative national agency.
Look North
Time, in short, for the government to take a big bet and look to the North where land, and house prices are cheaper, water is more plentiful, and there’s an abundance of brownfield sites. All that’s needed is imagination, vision, and a commitment to create a more balanced national economy: a country which, ironically, Keir Starmer once appeared to envisage in a speech as leader of the opposition.
Peter Hetherington is a former chair of the TCPA
