‘Transport for the North’ call to end decades of under-funding

Ed Cox, director of the IPPR North think-tank, told the Commons transport committee the North would benefit hugely from its own version of Transport for London, which controls public transport networks in the capital.

Mr Cox highlighted the huge disparity that persists between spending on transport in London and elsewhere in the country, and suggested a key reason was the lack of a voice outside the capital to push forward much-needed schemes in areas such as North and East Yorkshire.

“One very obvious example is the (planned) trans-Pennine electrification, which currently runs to York,” Mr Cox said. “If you extended it to Middlesbrough, Scarborough and Hull, that could make a significant difference.

“It’s not being extended for the simple reason that nobody has actually got round to doing the appraisal that needs to be done.

“I think there’s a kind of myopia about the way in which most transport appraisal decisions are taken from London.

“If we were to devolve some of that to something like a ‘Transport for the North’, we would be able to find the time and the capacity in order to do the appraisal on that kind of route.”

The backbench committee was taking evidence from several witnesses as to why transport spending varies so dramatically between different parts of the country.

Mr Cox said a key problem was the way the Department for Transport assesses which schemes to take forward, using appraisals based on existing population rather than economic potential. He said this disadvantages areas that are not as heavily populated as London, and drew comparisons with the German city of Leipzig, where a large amount of regeneration has taken place.

“I think we need a clear vision about what is the economic purpose of a place – and then (ask) how does transport infrastructure fit that purpose?” Mr Cox said. “I think that’s where we miss a trick if you compare us to Germany.

“If you look at some of the investment that has been made in Leipzig, there’s no real cost-benefit (analysis) that was going to stack up for an airport in Leipzig.

“But because it was combined with other things; like a devolved skills strategy to build up particular skills in the local area, like the attraction of a firm like DHL to put a big centre nearby as well; it was that combination of factors which actually enabled that airport infrastructure to move forward.

“It’s pulling those things together rather than seeing transport appraisal in this very narrow bracket.”

But another witness, the academic Henry Overman, who is Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics, claimed there would be little benefit to investing heavily outside the largest urban areas.

“In areas of the North which are congested, yes I am sure that putting additional infrastructure expenditure in there that eases congestion may help with some of the barriers to growth,” he said.

“But I don’t want us to take that argument too far. Because history, I’m afraid, is littered with examples of ‘transformative’ infrastructure expenditure that was going to turn around our peripheral regions, and did nothing of the kind – precisely because it’s not the major constraint across all these areas.

“I think in Manchester, Leeds there are projects that would look pretty good in terms of removing obstacles to growth.

“But I think that outside of those more prosperous areas where congestion is high, I struggle to think of things that would make a massive difference, relative to other issues in those areas.”