Speedy
LE
Over the past few days, I’ve been reading up on the Lord Kerslow headed UK2070 Commission’s findings.
It has produced various reports, which you can download from here - Publications | The UK2070 Commission and they produce some quite shocking results. It is far easier to read these two articles to get an idea of the content:
The government must invest in the North | Public Finance
North-south divide is now so bad it's like 'Germany at the end of the Cold War'
Essentially, the govt (of various types) has had a policy when it came to capital projects in that there must he a positive return. This favoured London and the SE over the north with the gap widening as more money was spent making the south ‘nice’ via the public purse, whilst the north has suffered, while still paying for the south to be nicer, well as nice as a selfish, pollution ridden expensive, unfriendly and over expensive region can be, and this has been going on for so long now (many decades) that there has been little to no investment in areas of northern England and has almost become an official policy to not invest outside of the London\southern bubble.
Lord Kerslow has even said that due to this policy the north and south gap has resulted in a situation very similar to the old East and West Germany when the wall came down when it comes to economic and life differences.
I know Boris has laid out his plan to ditch this clearly failing policy and begin investment in the north, but what I’d like to figure out is, where to begin?
I mean we’ve had almost two generations here now since the heavy industry began to be stripped out and closed down and many towns live in a permanent state of ‘bleak’.
It’s not as if there are not decent jobs up here, there are and many of my friends are engineers (proper ones!) or in other professional roles, but there seems little else for those not so inclined. Public transport outside of major cities is variable and the lack of investment in transport is visible.
They are building a new bypass here on the western edge of Preston which will link Blackpool Road to the M55. This was originally planned to be built in the 70’s! The M55 currently has junction one at Preston and Junction 3 at Kirkham. Junction 2 was never built. But now they are. 45 years late!
Sensible answers only please, but I’m damned if I know where to start without Manchester, Leeds etc. swallowing up any investment and just recreating the problem all over again.
It has produced various reports, which you can download from here - Publications | The UK2070 Commission and they produce some quite shocking results. It is far easier to read these two articles to get an idea of the content:
The government must invest in the North | Public Finance
North-south divide is now so bad it's like 'Germany at the end of the Cold War'
Essentially, the govt (of various types) has had a policy when it came to capital projects in that there must he a positive return. This favoured London and the SE over the north with the gap widening as more money was spent making the south ‘nice’ via the public purse, whilst the north has suffered, while still paying for the south to be nicer, well as nice as a selfish, pollution ridden expensive, unfriendly and over expensive region can be, and this has been going on for so long now (many decades) that there has been little to no investment in areas of northern England and has almost become an official policy to not invest outside of the London\southern bubble.
Lord Kerslow has even said that due to this policy the north and south gap has resulted in a situation very similar to the old East and West Germany when the wall came down when it comes to economic and life differences.
I know Boris has laid out his plan to ditch this clearly failing policy and begin investment in the north, but what I’d like to figure out is, where to begin?
I mean we’ve had almost two generations here now since the heavy industry began to be stripped out and closed down and many towns live in a permanent state of ‘bleak’.
It’s not as if there are not decent jobs up here, there are and many of my friends are engineers (proper ones!) or in other professional roles, but there seems little else for those not so inclined. Public transport outside of major cities is variable and the lack of investment in transport is visible.
They are building a new bypass here on the western edge of Preston which will link Blackpool Road to the M55. This was originally planned to be built in the 70’s! The M55 currently has junction one at Preston and Junction 3 at Kirkham. Junction 2 was never built. But now they are. 45 years late!
Sensible answers only please, but I’m damned if I know where to start without Manchester, Leeds etc. swallowing up any investment and just recreating the problem all over again.