Member Article

Government infrastructure spending favours London

Transport spending is significantly higher in London than in any other region, according to a statistics from Northern think tank, IPPR.

Londoners are being allocated more money per head than all the other regions combined, with £2,600 spent by the Government per head in the capital.

In comparison, people in the North East will receive a £5 spend per head, which IPPR highlighted in its report, ‘Spending Review North’.

Further to these figures, IPPR showed that 89% of capital investment planned for the future will be in London and the South East, with 33 infrastructure schemes in the pipeline for these Southern regions.

Just 3 infrastructure projects are planned for the North East, while the current National Infrastructure Plan will produce benefits for Londoners that are 500 times stronger than the advantages for North East residents.

These benefits will be 20 times those felt in the North West region, and 16 times those felt in Yorkshire and Humber.

New analysis from the think tank also showed that 8 of the top 10 most expensive infrastructure projects were allocated to the capital and the South East, while none were allocated to the North East, East Midlands or South West.

The top 5 most expensive regional public sector projects are all allocated to the South, London and the Midlands, while none went to the North.

Of projects funded wholly by the public sector, nearly 80% of funding went to London in comparison with 0.9% in the North East.

Ed Cox, Director of IPPR North commented: “Despite high profile Ministerial announcements promising greater investment in Northern infrastructure, the current government plans will not tackle this issue.

“Skewed spending benefiting London and the South East is nothing new but as we head towards new announcements at the Spending Review, these figures will strike most people as deeply unfair.

“Fairness aside, the more fundamental problem is that they will continue to hold back Northern economic prosperity and widen the yawning productivity gap between the capital and the rest of the nation.”

IPPR recommended that announcements at the Government’s Spending Review should come alongside a promise to rebalance regional spending budgets, while extra resources should be pledged by Network Rail, the Environment Agency and other agencies.

The report also suggested that capital spending should be devolved to local authorities, a national strategy should be developed to better plan the National Infrastructure Plan, and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) should collaborate on their own ‘Shadow Committee on Local Growth’.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .