15 August 2008
Proposals from a centre-Right think-tank to abandon regeneration efforts in Northern cities and encourage residents to move to the South have been attacked as 'plain stupid' by municipal and political leaders. While the authors of the Policy Exchange report, Cities unlimited, claimed they provided a 'realistic and hard-headed' approach to city regeneration, councils and development agencies dismissed their findings. 'Many of Britain's towns and cities have failed – and been failed by policymakers – for too long. It is better to tell uncomfortable truths than to continue to claim that if we carry on as we are, then things will turn out well,' the report, published on August 13, said. Coastal cities such as Liverpool, Hull and Sunderland had proved hard to regenerate as they had lost much of their raison d'être, it said. On the other hand, Oxford, Cambridge and London should be expanded, and there should be local autonomy over how regeneration funding is spent. 'An area that decided that there was no realistic chance of regeneration could use the money to help local people to find work elsewhere and to cut taxes for those who remained,' it said. Conservative Party leader David Cameron branded the report 'insane' on a visit to the Northwest on August 13, as he tried to distance the party from the report of the Tory-aligned think-tank. Margaret Fay, chair of the One NorthEast regional development agency, said: 'Some of the conclusions of this report are, as its authors admit, barmy. Sunderland has actually experienced the strongest economic growth per head of all Northeast regional authorities since 2000.' Sunderland City Council leader Paul Watson said the report's authors had not done their research. 'Since the 1980s the city has reinvented itself… more than 10,000 jobs have been created every decade to replace the jobs that were lost in Sunderland's traditional industries.' The head of policy at the Centre for Cities, Andrew Marshall, gave a measure of support to the report, saying he agreed with its recommendation to target resources on economic hubs which, he said, could boost economies in smaller cities nearby. But, he added, prioritising funding was still 'politically difficult'. But Warren Bradley, leader of Liverpool City Council, said the report had 'been widely ridiculed from Darlington to Devon as plain stupid and wrong'. He added: 'The past decade has seen unprecedented growth in Liverpool's economy, outstripping most Southern towns and cities.' Alexandra Jones, associate director at the Work Foundation, said regeneration was working, but more connectivity with core cities was needed. She asked: 'How can you remove those barriers, to make sure cities around Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle really do benefit from their growth? From a public policy perspective that is a much better question than how can we simply make it easier for people to move elsewhere.'
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