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Northerners told 'the South will save you'

It may sound like something from a bad science fiction film, but it’s true - Northerners are being told to move to the South East if they want to improve their quality of life. A radical report has claimed that regeneration policies in the North are doomed, and that abandoning the top half of the country would solve the problem…

Think tank Policy Exchange said a mass internal migration was the only solution to a decade of failed efforts to revive cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. Admitting that their findings might be seen as “plain barmy”, the report authors said that coastal cities like Liverpool and Sunderland had “lost much of their raison d’etre” with the decline of shipping.

These places had “little prospect of offering their residents the standard of living to which they aspire”, the report added.

“No one is suggesting that residents should be forced to move, but we do argue that they should be told the reality of the position: regeneration, in the sense of convergence, will not happen, because it is not possible,” it concluded.

It also argued that the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge were well placed to become the economic ‘power-houses’ of the 21st century and should be expanded dramatically, like Liverpool and Manchester expanded in the 19th century.

The authors included Tim Leunig, a lecturer in economic history at the London School of Economics, who said: “For the last decade British politics has been dominated by ministers who represent poorer urban areas and the New Labour government has invested heavily in urban regeneration. A future Conservative administration more representative of suburbs and the South would most probably have a very different set of priorities.”

A Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “No Government has done more to turn around decades of neglect, and since 1997 cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle have benefited from thousands of new jobs, lower crime rates and better living standards thanks to our sustained commitment to regeneration, and investment in public services.”

“It’s alarming that this ‘think tank’ is labelling our great cities as ‘beyond revival’ and arguing that we should target less effort on them, when those areas that have received regeneration funding have shown the greatest improvements.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .