Popular wisdom says, when you in a hole, stop digging deeper. The Conservatives remain in denial. They want more new homes and a more balanced economy, but remain prisoners of their Party’s activists, who are opposed to new housing near them and any government interference in the spatial market. For them, levelling up is a good intention but little more.
Labour too want more homes, But they are also wary of stirring up local anger about new homes. Unlike Conservatives they will intervene in the spatial market for land if there is a realistic way to boost growth in areas outside the south east. But they too do not know how to do it. At least they know conflicts can arise between local aspirations for no change, and national need for economic growth and have plans to strike a balance when it happens. As devolution becomes more important this mechanism will matter more too.
Neither party has any idea how to persuade the market to invest in the midlands and the north. Direction and subsidies will both fail. Policy continuity and political consensus will start the process towards trust, which is essential.
Overcome these two problems, and the people of England, our grandchildren will be laughing. Imagine mortgage debt burdens halving, for example. Imagine personal prosperity in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle matching London’s, with the bonus of open countryside free to roam on your doorstep. Both changes are possible, if credible long term enduring strategic spatial policies are adopted.
Let’s keep it simple. Right now two big policy changes are needed. But both policies will need about two or three generations to deliver.
SPATIAL POLICY 1. In the popular south and south east areas where lots more new homes are desperately needed to make them affordable a handful of new cities or towns on the scale of Milton Keynes will be needed. They will be designed and built at higher densities, and residents wanting their own car will pay for the privilege. On the other hand, their local public transport networks will match London’s but using magnetic levitation technology travel speeds will be super fast. It will be a different, affordable way of living. Jobs will local, or central London will be a super fast commute away. A spatial study of London and the south east will soon reveal the obvious locations. I did a version of this regional planning 60 years ago, and realised that patience mixed with market insights can deliver the obvious.
SPATIAL POLICY 2. How do you guarantee delivery of a levelling up policy? How do you do put Newcastle on Tyne on a par with Reading on Thames? Simple: you win the support of the next generation of new employers. Get the jobs to Newcastle and the staff will follow. It is not the other way around, and people who think it is have never advised company directors planning their long term location policy.
What do these entrepreneurs want? Above all, it is fast access to their market, whether it is a product to be transported or a service to be sent online. Next it is skilled staff. Finally it is attractive places to live and bring up your family. Why has the Thames Valley prospered since WW2? First, London’s proximity. . Second, rapid access to London by road and rail. Third the growth of Heathrow. Fourth delightful rural villages in protected countryside.
What the Thames Valley lacks are the wild untamed peaks of the Pennines, and the beaches and coves of the seaside. So the manmade amusement parks and the golf courses are a pale imitation of the Lake Disrict, the Dales and sea beaches of the south.
If Westminster’s main political parties could fund common ground along these lines, and persuade the local host locations new growth near them will bring a barrage of community benefits too, the winners would outnumber the doubters.
These are the foundations of levelling up. New settlements in the south east will need time, until they become popular with local residents. What’s in it for them? Whatever their price, it must be paid. Their support is essential.
There is one more policy which is also guaranteed to deliver to the host ample prosperity . I call it
SPATIAL Policy 3: Joker in the Pack
We move Westminister and Whitehall out of London to one favoured location over one generation. Rebuilding Westminster Palace would be a considerable saving. The quality of life for civil servants and politicians might be different. Perhaps the impetus for levelling up would receive a boost? Besides unsettling vested interests, are there downsides? It seems so obvious. Perhaps Scotland would then decide to stay in the union after all?
Ian Campbell
27 February 2023
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