Commentary

Want to help level up? Call a Mayor

What next for ‘levelling up’ after the government dropped the contentious label? Sean Fielding of Cavendish, and former Oldham Council leader, explores.

The levelling up brand was described by new ministers after the General Election as a gimmick; and many people in Northern local government agreed.

But with a government formed by a party that draws much of its support from deprived areas – and with polls suggesting a growing appetite from people in those areas to give something different a whirl, namely Reform UK – many would have assumed the levelling-up agenda (if not the name) would see much more action from Labour ministers?

No such luck, if the Chancellor’s speech last week is anything to go by.

Sure, some formula changes to local government grants mean a few places have done better than expected. Bolton, where I’m a councillor, has been able to reduce proposed budget cuts over the next two years from £8.2m to £7.8m, (£400k better off, big whoop!) but that’s still money coming out of the economy of a relatively poor place that has already been among the hardest hit by budget cuts for more than a decade.

On capital projects, the main items trailed were a third runway at Heathrow and improving transport links in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor to create a British version of Silicon Valley. While these major infrastructure projects will create far more well-paid jobs than the levelling up grants that funded tarting up a few town centres and buying litter pickers for volunteers, neither of them are in the North.

The only Northern projects given prominence in the announcement were the redevelopment of Old Trafford and the reopening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport. Things like desperately needed improvements to Northern rail infrastructure beyond those already announced, financial support for franchising bus services à la Greater Manchester’s Bee Network, and money to close viability gaps for the development of low value and contaminated sites were all absent.

What is notable is what links the Old Trafford and South Yorkshire airport projects – namely that they have been championed by Mayors and the combined authorities they lead.

Six months in, the new Labour Government has faced criticism for failing to articulate a vision for the country. Not an unreasonable expectation for us all to have, given the party had 14 years to think about it. The Chancellor’s speech last week tells us that they still haven’t come up with one, but in an attempt to pull one together quickly they have turned to Mayors to give them ideas they can run with.

Disappointing it may be for those who want to see a bolder approach, but at least investors and developers now know where they stand: here in the North, if you’ve got an idea in need of government support, then it’s better to get it under the nose of a Mayor rather than a minister.

With regional offices holding relationships with combined authorities across the North of England, Cavendish is uniquely placed to help investors and developers do just that.

For a conversation about how Cavendish could help you engage with regional leaders in combined authorities, Sean can be contacted at sean.fielding@cavendishconsulting.com

  • Sean Fielding is the former Leader of Oldham Council and an associate director at Cavendish Consulting

 

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Your Comments

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Perhaps not the case in Liverpool City Region for their Mayor given the Astra Zeneca debacle last week?

By Kirk Bee

Levelling up, is the most offensive term from a parliament which has deliberately levelled us down. Reeves has proved that she is no friend of the North.

By Elephant

One of the reasons why many of the councils in the North West are weak and achieve little is that they have some councillors who are simply career politicians, whose ultimate aim is to somehow get elected to Westminster. It doesn’t matter to them which authority or people they represent, they just need to be a councillor SOMEWHERE to get their name on the list when a vacancy arises for a candidate for election of an MP in their particular location. One of the worst failing councils, Oldham, has had that problem for over 20 years and continues to have it today.

By Anonymous

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