It’s a tale of two river crossings, and of two nations: a defining national landmark across the Tyne in need of an extra £6m from the government, and an ambitious plan being pushed by the chancellor for a Lower Thames Crossing at an estimated cost of at least £6bn. Together, they speak volumes about two-speed England and government priorities.
Somewhat forlorn, partly covered in scaffolding, the majestic, rusting Tyne Bridge linking Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead is undergoing a long-delayed, four-year restoration meant to be completed for its centenary in 2028. The last government initially promised £35m towards the £41m 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 the remaining £6m 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.
But there’s 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”. But surely that could also be said of the 13-mile upgrade of the A1 in Northumberland, north of the Tyne Bridge, from single to dual carriageway. Yet plans, approved by the last government, have been abandoned because its £500m cost apparently offers “poor value for money and limited economic benefits”.
Putting aside the obvious question as to whether 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 £68m 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 played down the potential for regional growth. Decent infrastructure, after all, sends out positive signals to investors while underpinning the foundational, social economy and the services that sustain vibrant communities, particularly in areas that have barely recovered from the recession of the early 1980s, let alone subsequent financial crises and further mass redundancies.
For much of my working life, not least as regional affairs editor of the Guardian, 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.
Our deep regional inequalities can be traced back to Victorian times, with north-south divisions intensifying in the 1920s-30s, prompting governments to respond with a series 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. It has stubbornly remained so, in spite of valiant efforts by Labour after 1997.
It’s 20 years since I chaired a cross-party commission – Connecting England – which examined in detail the uneven economy of a divided nation and put the case for a national framework to identity “future development needs and priorities”. It immediately caught the attention of the late John Prescott, former deputy prime minister, who created nine regional development agencies in England 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, for instance – the country would “drift directionless, reinforcing a belief … that the winner takes all”. And so it is now proving again.
Prescott took on board our case for greater emphasis on regional economies away from London, producing a “northern way” growth strategy around a trans-Pennine corridor and a specialist team to take it forward. But in 2010, a Tory-Liberal Democrat government scrapped the regional development agencies, regional planning strategies and all. Eric Pickles, then local government and planning secretary, famously labelled regional direction “Stalinist”.
On taking office seven 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 it had a plan to address England and its profound regional inequalities. Sadly, I was wrong. Ringing in my ears were comments in an interview two years ago with the late Bob Kerslake, former head of the civil service and, before that, chief executive of Sheffield city council, that “comprehensive long-term intervention” was needed to begin turning round the economies of post-industrial areas, away from the big cities: areas – dare I suggest, like the communities in “red wall” constituencies not far from the cancelled A1 dual carriageway in Northumberland.
It took Rachel Reeves to confirm recently there was 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 multibillion-pound Oxford-Cambridge hi-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.
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 – or in this case up – from south to north has worked in the past.
We are left, then, with the dismissive tones of National Highways, which runs major roads in England, suggesting that 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”. Pull the other one.
“Regional policy?” mused an old friend, a leading academic who has spent much of his working life studying regional disparities in Europe and beyond. “It’s called London and the greater south-east.” With the odd exception, it’s same as it ever was.