Plea for rural focus in growth plans

Years of action have made “significant progress” tackling inner city problems and it is small and rural towns which have the weakest economies which can only be solved by giving them “radical new powers”, the Localis thinktank says.

The concerns over the Government’s focus on cities are echoed in a new document from Conservative-run North Yorkshire County Council calling on Ministers to give more attention to rural areas in its industrial strategy.

David Cameron’s Government was repeatedly criticised for concentrating heavily on cities as part of its Northern Powerhouse drive to rebalance the economy.

Theresa May’s industrial strategy launched earlier this year was supposed to signal a broader approach but the Localis thinktank report argues national economic policies have contributed to the North-South divided and a growing gulf between towns and cities.

Localis chief executive Liam Booth-Smith said some parts of the country had yet to recover from the economic “trauma” of the 1980s and it was these places that had voted most strongly for Brexit.

He said: “In the aftermath of triggering Article 50, the Government’s industrial strategy has to address a political imperative of how the benefits of growth are fairly shared across the nation to reach these areas.

“We need to expand economic policy out from big cities to small town England.”

The report criticises the Government’s current approach to handing areas more control over their own affairs through so-called ‘devolution deals’ and recommends they should be scrapped in favour of giving all parts of the country access to a menu of powers if they meet set criteria.

It argues councils should be given more freedom over business rates, the power to set VAT locally and to make housing developers pay for new roads.

The report also identifies York and Bradford as among “stifled” areas which do not have enough space to grow and suggests they should be given the option of redrawing their boundaries to take land from their neighbours.

Responding to the report, Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “For growth to occur a business needs to choose to invest and take a risk. These decisions happen in places, they affect local people.

“The Prime Minister has made clear that we need to ‘drive growth across the country’ and the industrial strategy will not ignore this reality.”

In its response to the Government’s industrial strategy, North Yorkshire County Council says it should have a “rural focus as well as urban” and recognise “the rural economy can be just as productive as those of the major core cities”.

Rolling out broadband and mobile technology to rural areas should be a “priority” and international firms should be encouraged to invest in the countryside, it says.