North needs funding, not relocation

Aug 22 2008 by Nicholas Craig, The Journal

WHAT a wind-up. What a result for Policy Exchange. The mass migration to the spacious South East which the think-tank appears to recommend is doomed to failure, not least because selling a house in Sunderland to buy a similar one in a university or capital city down south just doesn’t add up.

Yet the main point – that regeneration has yet to transform the North into a uniformly successful region – is not new, and is an all-too-obvious truth.

Other think tanks have come to the same conclusion, sporadically measuring the North-South divide and almost always deciding that it yawns as depressingly as ever.

Regional development agencies, tasked with breathing new life into their areas, are also facing the wrath of pressure groups. They should be scrapped, says the Taxpayers’ Alliance. They have failed to boost the English economy and their collective budget – £2.1bn by the time of the likely next election, in 2010 – should instead be used to slash small business corporation tax.

One NorthEast’s work may have made inroads into regenerating Sunderland but RDAs have more to deal with than the unimpressed Policy Exchange or Taxpayers’ Alliance.

There are now plans to devolve power and money from RDAs to emerging city-region partnerships. The first set to sign is Manchester, followed by South Tees.

These multi-area agreements will have councils pooling powers and commissions overseeing transport, environment, housing, planning, health and the local economy.

They may be worthwhile, but it’s difficult to see them as streamlined, dynamic, focused regeneration machines. The MAAs will still have to work alongside new unitary authorities, RDAs, regional government offices and national government. It augurs slow decisions and crippling compromise.

If Sunderland and the North East are to succeed long-term they need radical injections of national cash to fund better transport links, quicker trains and much improved roads. Many of the business and cultural successes we achieve wither in comparison to sub-standard Southern replicas because the perceived problems of travelling here put off too many influential people.

No one should be moving south. The North East should instead become a transport hub for the country, as easy and pleasant as possible to access from air, road, rail or sea. We’re at the centre of Team GB, after all.

Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton law firm