Patrick O’Flynn
the west coast and Hull on the east is only about 120 miles – approximately the same as between Swindon and Southend at opposite edges of the London travel-to-work area.
Yet this Liverpool to Hull corridor contains the cities of Manchester, Leeds and Bradford, and large towns like Warrington and Huddersfield.
The South Yorkshire population centres like Sheffield are close by. A network of highspeed rail and road links knitting together a region 120 miles across by about 40 miles deep has the potential to create an economic zone with a population similar to London, and with many attractions for employers, including cheaper land and less congestion.
This notion was, to give him credit, crystallised by George Osborne – a rare senior Tory sitting in a northern seat at the time – in the “Northern Powerhouse”. So it is exciting to see the new PM Boris Johnson reinvigorating it.
In a major speech on Saturday, Mr Johnson promised to “turbocharge” plans for a faster trans-Pennine rail route between Manchester and Leeds – saying the benefits would be “colossal”. He has long championed bold infrastructure, although some of his outlandish ideas – a Thames Estuary airport and the ill-fated Garden Bridge – never took off.
He must make sure the same fate does not befall the Northern Powerhouse. And there is one decision he could take that would signal his seriousness: scrap HS2 and switch most of its budget into northern infrastructure projects.
So long as HS2 continues to soak up massive amounts of public finance, it is impossible to see the Northern Powerhouse becoming a truly transformative idea. Yet the PM struck an unusual note of timidity, declaring: “With all the controversy surrounding the spend on HS2, which will probably be north of £100billion, it is only responsible to have a short review.” A short review doesn’t cut it, unless it is to be followed by a bold pulling of the plug.
AS a former Mayor of London, he’ll know that, unlike other countries, Britain does not disperse key economic sectors sensibly. In the US politics is based in Washington, finance in New York, film in LA. In the Netherlands, politics is in The Hague while Amsterdam is finance and culture. In Britain, politics, finance, film and TV is all based in London. It all results in a lop-sided economy that spreads a feeling of being ignored or left behind across much of the rest of the country.
If Boris Johnson can start to tackle that, not only will major economic benefits follow, but so may political gains for his party as it finally proves it is not only in it for the South-east. That, in the end, may be the factor that finally swings it for the North.