Mission to level up ‘like bringing east Germany out of Soviet bloc’

Former Bank of England chief economist to lead Johnson’s new taskforce to help ‘left-behind’ areas

BORIS JOHNSON has appointed a former Bank of England chief economist to lead his “levelling up” agenda, as a report likens the project to the 30-year transformation of East Germany.

Andy Haldane, who left the Bank in June, will become head of a New Levelling Up Taskforce, as the Ministry of Housing is rebranded the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, following Michael Gove’s appointment as its Secretary of State.

Mr Haldane has previously warned that “you don’t level up from the top down. Rather you level up from the bottom up”. A new report warns that Mr Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda will fail if he focused on “expensive heavy infrastructure rather than catalysing bottom-up improvements to local places”.

The report, to be launched by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, this week urges Mr Johnson and Mr Gove to focus on rejuvenating “left behind” areas, including by overhauling high streets, planting trees, creating more parks and improving bus services. Mr Johnson has put infrastructure investment at the heart of his levelling up agenda, including with the promise of new roads and dozens of hospitals.

But Nicholas Boys Smith, a government adviser who sat on the Commission into Prosperity and Community Placemaking, which wrote the report, said: “Abandoned high streets, derelict shops, closed pubs bring an almost physical pain to many in ‘left behind’ communities ... If the Government see levelling up as constructing fast roads linking new jobs to new housing estates sprawling through our countryside they will have missed a vital opportunity to invest in our existing communities and grow sustainably.”

James Frayne, a pollster whose firm Public First has been used by Downing Street, warns that with only three years until the general election campaign, “the Government must get a move on improving town and city centres – and high streets particularly. Big infrastructure alone cannot arrest a city’s decline.”

Mr Haldane will join the Cabinet Office as a permanent secretary, on secondment from the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce for six months. He will report jointly to Mr Johnson and Mr Gove.

Mr Johnson said: “Andy is qualified to lead our efforts to raise living standards, spread opportunity, improve our public services and restore people’s sense of pride in their communities.”

The Commission into Prosperity and Community Placemaking was chaired by Toby Lloyd, a former housing adviser to Theresa May. The report warns that “top-down investment must not focus on expensive heavy infrastructure rather than in catalysing bottom-up improvements to local places”.

It warns that towns and neighbourhoods are “vital for prosperous community life” but states that economic change and Covid have left the future of traditional high streets “on a knife edge” as it faces “terminal decline”.

The recommendations include new Community Improvement Districts, which would see businesses combining with local councils to improve “the physical fabric, trading conditions and community involvement in town centres.” It also proposes replacing dual carriageways with “treelined boulevards, tramlines and green space” and states that 8.7 million people live more than 10 minutes walk from a local park, adding: “Left behind places need trees, trams and tricycles to create prosperous, child-friendly environments.”

‘Abandoned high streets, derelict shops, closed pubs bring almost physical pain in ‘left behind’ communities’