A new Institute for Public Policy (IPPR) study shows if Northern transport had seen the same investment as London over the last decade, it would have received £140bn more.
Published today (Monday 9th June), the study found the North of England could have built the equivalent of seven Elizabeth lines.
To conduct the research, experts from IPPR and IPPR North examined Treasury figures over the decade to 2022/23. They found that London received £1,183 per person per year while the North got less than half – £486 of transport spending per person.
While the statistic for the North of England is poor, the East Midlands fared even worse. Researchers found an average of £355 per person was spent on transport investment – less than a third received by London.
‘Today’s figures are concrete proof that promises made to the North over the last decade were hollow. It was a decade of deceit,’ Marcus Johns, a senior research fellow at IPPR North, said. ‘We are 124 years from the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, yet the North is still running on infrastructure built during her reign, while our transport chasm widens.
‘This isn’t London-bashing – Londoners absolutely deserve investment. But £1,182 per person for London and £486 for Northerns? The numbers don’t lie – this isn’t right.’
One example of how Northern transport has been failed within the last 10 years is the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2. Said to be ‘Britain’s new high-speed railway’, the train route was supposed to provide better access to cities across the UK and bridge the north-south divide.
However, the government have made recent promises to improve Northern transport. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to invest £15bn in the spending review, which is due to take place this Wednesday, to improve transport outside of our capital city. This includes plans to create a tram service in Leeds.
Though IPPR North have said authorities need to go even further. The thinktank have partnered with Jim O’Neill, former Treasury minister and chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.
‘Good governance requires the guts to take a long-term approach, not just fix fixes,’ Jim said. ‘So the chancellor is right in her focus on the UK’s longstanding supply-side weaknesses – namely our woeful productivity and weak private and public investment.’
‘Backing major infrastructure is the right call, and this spending review is the right time for the chancellor to place a big bet on northern growth an begin to close this investment chasm,’ he continued.
‘But it’s going to take more than commitments alone – she’ll need to set out a transport framework for delivery.’
Photo by Arthur Lambillotte
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