HOW YORKSHIRE IS BEING STUFFED
Yorkshire and the North East are
being "left behind" their Northern Powerhouse neighbours in the race
to fund major projects.
More than £41bn of infrastructure spending is
planned in the North West over the next five years, compared to £15bn in
Yorkshire and the North East. We wanted the Autumn Statement
to tackle the imbalance, it didn't.
Analysis by BBC News has found that there is a disparity in the amount
of money planned to be spent on infrastructure projects across the North.Spending on infrastructure includes improving
roads, railways and access to the internet and is seen as a way to boost the
economy. Some of the projects identified include spending
£375m on the A1 in Yorkshire and £600m on building a new bridge over the River
Mersey.
The money spent on one London Railway Station, Kings Cross was more than was spent in the North of England for a full year.
Per person spending in the North West is earmarked
to be three times higher than in Yorkshire and The Humber and twice as high as
in the North East of England.
"I don't think the Northern Powerhouse is
working for everybody which is why people feel left behind," said Bradford
Council leader Susan Hinchliffe.
"I applaud the idea of a powerhouse but what
we need is help to ensure Yorkshire and the North East can catch up so everyone
can achieve their potential."
The technology and betting company Sky Bet employs
more than 1,000 people in Leeds making them one of the city's biggest
employers.
Richard Flint (Chief Executive) said poor transport links are having
a direct impact on his business and the wider economy.
He said: "When we surveyed potential employees
we found 64% would consider moving to London for a job but only 34% would move
to Leeds. The main reason why they wouldn't move to Leeds was the poor
transport links and therefore the long commute.
"The reality is that people don't want to
travel between Manchester and Leeds for work. So for us as a growing company we
want to see transport across the North improved so we can attract and retain the best Talent"
Train journeys between Leeds and Manchester (30 Miles) can take over an hour. By road, pack sandwiches.
The Northern Powerhouse
was a concept created by former chancellor George Osborne in 2014 as an attempt
to "rebalance" the UK's economy away from being dominated by London
and the South East.
"We do in the North East feel at times the
government naturally focuses on Manchester and Liverpool so we do have to elbow
our way into contention," said Dave Budd, the elected mayor of
Middlesbrough.
Whatever way you look at it, not only do we lose out to the South East, London especially, we are also behind Manchester in the queue. Loosing out to London is understandable, London is where MPs live, it is also where all the Newspaper and TV pundits live, its where the BBC live, there has always been this London bias. But why do we loose out to Manchester.
Part of it is to do with George Osbourne. Manchester pulled off the con of getting everyone to believe Manchester was the same as "Greater Manchester", Manchester is a small City in the heart of a lot of other towns and cities, it never quotes stats for Manchester, it says Manchester but it means the City Region. This combined with their jumping on Georges shovel as soon as he said Jump, gave them an elected Mayor.
In contrast Leeds is always quoted as Leeds, not the Leeds City Region. Part of the reason for that is that the Leeds City Region is bigger in every respect than the Manchester City Region. Leeds City Region agreed to a devolution deal years ago and has as yet not had an answer from Government. We have been told that we cant have a deal because the Conservative MP's have been given a Veto.
So part of the reason we are being shafted is because some Tory MP is more concerned about gerrymandering the boundaries to create a safe fiefdom for one of their number than jobs and homes for their constituents.
I have to point out that though most of this has been lifted from the BBC not all of it, and some of the language has been changed to make it more readable and a bit nearer the truth.
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