Transport Spending Inequality

[PyrahnaRanger]

An article in the Guardian popped up in my news feed this morning, claiming that the IPPR have calculated that the "North" has been neglected to the tune of £140 billion compared to the "South" over the last decade, with per capita spending less than half, and the Midlands nearly a third compared to London's spend.

I don't really want an argument over whether the level of difference is justified, but I'd be interested to know what people think we've missed out on doing/building with an extra £140bn! (I think HS2 probably isn't counted in that - it's a whole level of dysfunctional all on it's own!)

Guardian article stating IPPR believes the North has been underfunded by £140bn over the last decade compared to the south

In the decade to 2022-23, London received £1,183 per person per year while the north got less than half of that – £486 of transport spending per person.

“Ministers have begun to restore fairness with their big bet on transport cash for city leaders. They should continue on this journey to close this investment gap in the upcoming spending review and decades ahead”.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It's been quite hard for the fragmented "north" to put up development schemes which reach Treasury rules on value for money.
The "south" had its act together and so got Thameslink, Crossrail and GW electrification without much challenge, and MML electrification is under way.
Nearly all the West Coast Modernisation money was spent south of the Mersey.
HS2 was supposed to benefit all regions with its Y structure, but as we have seen is now just a London-Birmingham project.

The focus is now east-west across the north, so Transpennine electrification is in progress and a new Liverpool-Manchester line may pop up later this week.
There have been useful upgrades around Manchester (airport links, Metrolink, electrification to Liverpool/Blackpool/Wigan, various new network connections).
The Manchester Hub upgrade went off half-cock with the Ordsall Link built but the linked upgrades at Oxford Road/Piccadilly were stalled despite planning approval.
Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham got decent tram networks, but Liverpool and Leeds didn't.

The metro mayors do seem to be making a difference, especially Andy Burnham for Greater Manchester.
Leeds looks like getting a metro system at last.
But the Treasury is still the blocker at the centre, until commercial proposals are on the table for the north, to help pay for new infrastructure.

 

[Magdalia]

It's been quite hard for the fragmented "north" to put up development schemes which reach Treasury rules on value for money.

Last Wednesday's announcement included a lot of development schemes for "the north".

Rachel Reeves announces £15bn for transport projects

Money will be spent on tram, train and bus projects in England across the Midlands, North and West Country.

www.bbc.co.uk

Billions of pounds of investment in transport infrastructure in England have been announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

The money will be spent on tram, train and bus projects in mayoral authorities across the Midlands, the North and the West Country.

But the Treasury is still the blocker at the centre, until commercial proposals are on the table for the north, to help pay for new infrastructure.

Changing Treasury rules has played its part see this bit from further down the article:

The transport investment marks Reeves' first open move away from the stringent rules in the Treasury's Green Book, external, which is used by officials to calculate the value for money of major projects.

The book has been criticised for favouring London and the south-east.

In a speech in Greater Manchester, the chancellor said that sticking to book's rules has meant "growth created in too few places, felt by too few people and wide gaps between regions, and between our cities and towns".

 

[Zomboid]

Is this about that article bemoaning how the per capita spend has been much higher in London/ South East over the last decade?

It's a bit of an oversimplification - whilst I'm not saying other areas don't deserve funding (they obviously do), London is at the point where most meaningful interventions are megaprojects like crossrail. Other places can have meaningful enhancements without doing that kind of thing or spending that kind of money.

 

[AndrewP]

Funding should be where it is needed full stop.

Base it on a benefits (not business) case not where the project is.

Also, in my view, this should be based on the UK as a whole. Will London and the South East get more - yes because more will benefit (no I don't live there) but it will also reduce vanity projects (in theory)

 

[jfollows]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...140bn-for-transport-in-decade-of-deceit-study reports today (noted above)

The north of England could have built the equivalent of seven Elizabeth lines with the transport funding it has missed out on during “a decade of deceit”, research shows.

If the north had received the same per-person spending as London, it would have had an extra £140bn over the last 10 years, analysis of Treasury figures by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and IPPR North has found.

In the decade to 2022-23, London received £1,183 per person per year while the north got less than half of that – £486 of transport spending per person.

The figure for the north-west was £540, there was £441 spent per person in Yorkshire and the Humber, and as little as £430 in the north-east.

The East Midlands fared even worse, with an average of £355 per person spent – less than a third of that received by London.

I’m afraid I have become immune to all this talk about investing in ‘the north’, ‘levelling up’ and many other broken promises from all types of government.
I don’t dispute that London and area might justify more spending per head, but I think the divergence is too great.
And in London the projects which go vastly over budget are allowed to continue, whereas in ‘the north’ they get cancelled.

 

[Western Lord]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...140bn-for-transport-in-decade-of-deceit-study reports today

I’m afraid I have become immune to all this talk about investing in ‘the north’, ‘levelling up’ and many other broken promises from all types of government.
I don’t dispute that London and area might justify more spending per head, but I think the divergence is too great.
And in London the projects which go vastly over budget are allowed to continue, whereas in ‘the north’ they get cancelled.

Does levelling UP mean London house prices "oop North"?

 

[ainsworth74]

It's been quite hard for the fragmented "north" to put up development schemes which reach Treasury rules on value for money.

[...]

But the Treasury is still the blocker at the centre, until commercial proposals are on the table for the north, to help pay for new infrastructure.

Yes the way that HM Treasury assess projects has been faintly catastrophic for the UK as a whole really. Projects in the South East will get through past the Value for Money assessment of the Green Book thanks to the concentration of people in the South East and London whilst projects in the North and other regions struggle to accrue the same assessed benefits. This, over decades, becomes a self-reinforcing problem because as more economic activity and people move to the South East the benefits of investment (and the need, the South East and London absolutely still needs major infrastructure spending!) look better and better as their being assessed by the HM Treasury.

Last Wednesday's announcement included a lot of development schemes for "the north".

Just £125bn left to go then I guess!

It's a bit of an oversimplification - whilst I'm not saying other areas don't deserve funding (they obviously do), London is at the point where most meaningful interventions are megaprojects like crossrail. Other places can have meaningful enhancements without doing that kind of thing or spending that kind of money.

Sure and only someone who hasn't seen a morning peak, even post Covid, in London would suggest that more investment isn't warranted. London needs Crossrail 2, it needs the Bakerloo line extension, it needs New Tube for London, etc etc.

But, in my opinion, the lack of investment in the North (and other regions) is having pretty disastrous economic and society consequences at this point. If you want economic growth and development one way of doing that is investing in the areas where the bus services pack up by 6pm and don't run on Sunday's at all. It's improving the reliability and capacity of the railway links between different major conurbations (which is slowly happening). It's investing in metros and tram networks in major cities to help people move around efficiently. You want economic growth? We're going to have to do something about the other major cities and regions in the UK, we cannot just keep relying on the South East and London for everything.

Does levelling UP mean London house prices "oop North"?

Potentially though that will likely be on the back of economic growth and development with more and better paying jobs being accessible to people in the North. Indeed London and the South East would likely benefit and see house prices stagnate as the inward pressure on demand (London and the South East being the main location of well paid jobs in England and, really, the UK as a whole) should lessen as other regions of the UK close the gap that's opened up.

 

[DarloRich]

Projects in the South East will get through past the Value for Money assessment of the Green Book thanks to the concentration of people in the South East and London whilst projects in the North and other regions struggle to accrue the same assessed benefits

it is a very chicken and egg situation with investment in the "north". it isn't worth investing as the returns are low but because the returns are low it isn't worth investing!

PS the biggest issue is creating high quality, high skilled, secure jobs in areas that need investment.

 

[ainsworth74]

it is a very chicken and egg situation with investment in the "north". it isn't worth investing as the returns are low but because the returns are low it isn't worth investing!

Exactly and then a few decades of that leads to the present somewhat dilapidated state of things. Obviously there are some bright sparks here and there such as Northern did getting a large fleet of new DMUs and EMUs (even if reviews are mixed), that we are getting the Transpennine Route Upgrade (in some form at least), and now the Chancellor's recent announcement of a further £15bn on various projects in various regions.

But in general I do think a major reason why the North has been struggling for so long is that the prevailing orthodoxy has been, as you say, investing in the North (and elsewhere) is seen as having a low rate of return and because the rate of return is low it isn't worth investing and so the vicious circle continues!

PS the biggest issue is creating high quality, high skilled, secure jobs in areas that need investment.

Oh absolutely but it seems like a part of getting those jobs into places that need them has got to be investing in the underlying infrastructure and helping to make those places attractive places to invest in your factory, or HQ, or research lab, etc etc.

 

[DarloRich]

Oh absolutely but it seems like a part of getting those jobs into places that need them has got to be investing in the underlying infrastructure and helping to make those places attractive places to invest in your factory, or HQ, or research lab, etc etc.

Agreed - you need both otherwise you just have a nice tram to get to your insecure low paid job rather than the bus

PPS it also isn't a "oner" - you need to fund the local authorities suitably so they can maintain and (shock!) expand thier nice new tram network.

 

[ainsworth74]

PPS it also isn't a "oner" - you need to fund the local authorities suitably so they can maintain and (shock!) expand thier nice new tram network.

This of course being why HM Treasury are loathe to fund such things. The local authorities probably can't afford it by themselves, which means it will come back to Central Government coffers but their assessment says it isn't Value for Money to build and fund such a thing so why give them the money in the first place...

And around we go again in the underinvestment circle

 

[DarloRich]

This of course being why HM Treasury are loathe to fund such things. The local authorities probably can't afford it by themselves, which means it will come back to Central Government coffers but their assessment says it isn't Value for Money to build and fund such a thing so why give them the money in the first place...

And around we go again in the underinvestment circle

or you sell it off!

HOPEFULLY - we might see a change in how some of these projects are viewed. However, they have actually got to be delivered close to time and budget

 

[Narrowgauge725]

Living in the very north of England Berwick Upon Tweed the levelling up from our government has seen the cancel of A1 duelling lots of money spent so wasted. Now I cannot specifically blame them but the fixation with speeding up KX to Edinburgh means less frequent services for Berwick.

 

[quartile]

But, in my opinion, the lack of investment in the North (and other regions) is having pretty disastrous economic and society consequences at this point. If you want economic growth and development one way of doing that is investing in the areas where the bus services pack up by 6pm and don't run on Sunday's at all. It's improving the reliability and capacity of the railway links between different major conurbations (which is slowly happening). It's investing in metros and tram networks in major cities to help people move around efficiently. You want economic growth? We're going to have to do something about the other major cities and regions in the UK, we cannot just keep relying on the South East and London for everything.

Unfortunately what's not always calculated is that the lack of Sunday bus and evening services that stop people using public transport for work, unless the congestion and parking costs are very high, if I need a car for my social life, I might as well drive to work. For bigger places like say Reading, I wonder what it would take for households to have one less car? - rather than there being 1 car per adult. Because I'm a london commuter my family can have 1 car for two adults but working elsewhere, it's likely I'd need to drive.

 

[Haywain]

On a general note, in making these comparisons of spending, it's a bit meaningless if the country is not being looked at in equal parts.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jun 2025 ==

the cancel of A1 duelling

That's a shame, I was looking forward to seeing that!!

 

[Magdalia]

The economic history is hugely important to all of this.

I'm old enough to remember the 1970s when London was a declining city. That all changed with the economic boom that followed financial deregulation in the 1980s. For many years after London had transport infrastructure that struggled to cope, and that hampered economic growth; I remember commuting from Cambridge in the 2000s when we had 6 of the top 10 most overcrowded trains on the network. London got lots of transport investment because that was where it was most needed, and, 40 years later, it can be argued that the backlog still hasn't been cleared. Spending in recent times has included £19bn on Crossrail (Elizabeth Line) and £6bn on Thameslink, these are things that in a well run country would have happened 10-20 years earlier.

Another key economic event was the 2008 financial crash. Since then public finances have deteriorated and governments have found it much easier to cut investment spending than current spending, hence the cancellation of various infrastructure projects. This government is trying to do things differently, protecting investment spending but squeezing current spending, we will find out how they are getting on with that when the spending review is announced on Wednesday.

 

[BurtonM]

What's been missed out?
A wider rolling stock replacement and refurbishment programme for Northern - 150s should have gone with the Pacers, instead of the insultingly poor refurbs.
As a baseline 156/158 should have been the 'worst' things kept (and 156s are even debatable given tendency to corrode), and refurbed to a good standard.
Electrification 10 years late.

 

[Zomboid]

What could have happened?
What's just been announced as not-London capital projects? That, for a start.

 

[styles]

It's a self-fulfilling problem to an extent though.

Yes London transport services are over-crowded, but the reason people move to London is because the jobs, and the jobs are in London because of the transport links (domestically and internationally).

If you invested the money spent on London transport in any other large GB city, you'd see a boom there as well, maybe to a lesser extent or over a longer period of time of course as attitudes don't change overnight. You'd then find yourself needing to invest more in that city.

We can't expect businesses to move to Leeds or Newcastle or Carlisle unless it's easy for their partners, clients, suppliers to get to them. We can't expect people to move to cities in 'the north' if the transport connections to get to work or do business aren't up to scratch.

Of course we need to spend more on London transport, but the more we spend, the larger the population will grow, and the more we'll need to spend again to meet demand, and so on.

 

[spyinthesky]

Living in the very north of England Berwick Upon Tweed the levelling up from our government has seen the cancel of A1 duelling lots of money spent so wasted. Now I cannot specifically blame them but the fixation with speeding up KX to Edinburgh means less frequent services for Berwick.

I think Berwick is an example that has a fairly low population and spending per capita would bring cuts (which it has)
It’s whole population could potentially travel by train somewhere in a single day of which there are plenty of direct links.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Realistically the north will never "level up" unless HS2 is built to Manchester, Leeds and York as originally proposed. The demand for travel to and from London is massive and the ECML and WCML are at capacity. Freeing up paths on the southern part of the WCML when HS2 opens is all well and good, but it doesn't help further north.

I don't think it helps that politicians and Metro Mayors seem to be obsessed with big projects.
When I lived in Leeds the public transport improvement that would have made the biggest difference would have been better early morning and evening buses and the introduction of a night bus network, all of which could have been done for a modest investment. Yet it never happened and instead millions of pounds were wasted designing various tram and other projects that didn't materialise.
In the end I gave up and moved closer to work so I could just walk in!

 

[AndrewP]

I don't think it helps that politicians and Metro Mayors seem to be obsessed with big projects.

I agree with this and it's not a new thing - the Tyne and Wear Metro would have given far more opportunities for small but meaningful improvements if it had been fully integrated into mainline rail similar to how MerseyRail was when built.

Also, many bus improvements have been driven by operators but the inherent lack of co-ordination caused by multiple ownership - again not new but much more so since privatisation - but there is always the issue of declining use generally but, again, as you said, small investments can mean big improvements

 

[Zomboid]

Politicians like to have a ribbon to cut and something to point to to show that they did something.

And it's not a bad thing to want to do something big and transformative. Ultimately the T&W metro when built might have solved a problem that a load of buses and stuff would also have solved, but they had the ambition to do more and it's unlikely that a smaller investment like that at the time would be up to scratch now.

Plus a lot of the original T&W system was taking over heavy rail routes that BR wasn't doing a good enough job with.

 

[Haywain]

And it's not a bad thing to want to do something big and transformative.

It's more difficult to big projects to be dumped later as well.

 

[The exile]

I agree with this and it's not a new thing - the Tyne and Wear Metro would have given far more opportunities for small but meaningful improvements if it had been fully integrated into mainline rail similar to how MerseyRail was when built

In what ways was Merseyrail more integrated into mainline rail (other than ticketing which could be done at the stroke of a pen) Merseyrail was / is a self-contained system requiring interchange with other rail services to get beyond its network.
The only “goofed interchange” on the Metro is at Manors, where I suspect it was assumed that the BR station was doomed anyway.
Most cities in the UK would be delighted to have what T&W have got.

 

[Simon11]

I wished there was a more balanced article and higher quality analysis which better shows the gap rather than trying to cause an argument.

If you were to sit on the other side, you would look at subsidy per passenger journey mile which would clearly show that passenger journeys in the north are subsidized several times over compared to London. Why should a journey in the north be subsidized more than in London?

Plus I personally consider that HS2 will have a much bigger benefit for passengers living in the North outside of London than for Londers and thus a big share should be included in the 'North's figures.

A more balanced approach to this analysis would be in the London analysis to consider non-London people in the analysis. A large number of non-Londoners plus international tourists stand to gain from investment in London transport infrastructure. In 2024, an estimated 30 million tourists visited London, including international and domestic visitors (doubled the size of the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber with 15 million people) who are not considered in the 'IPPR's analysis.

Anyone with time to put together a balanced analysis?

 

[stuu]

It's a bit of a stupid comparison because it is well known that there have been big projects in London over the last decade. The next decade is very unlikely to see the same disparity, and I bet the numbers aren't anything close to the same before ~1995 when most spending was on roads

 

[Simon11]

It's a bit of a stupid comparison because it is well known that there have been big projects in London over the last decade. The next decade is very unlikely to see the same disparity, and I bet the numbers aren't anything close to the same before ~1995 when most spending was on roads

Agreed and I would bet that they have taken the full cost for all these schemes. The reality is:

• Approximately two-thirds, or 67%, of the £14.8 billion Crossrail project, now known as the Elizabeth Line, was funded by London-based people/ businesses.
• The £1 billion Northern Line extension was fully funded by London-based people/ businesses

People in the North certainly did have a case when Paccers were running around about having the worst rolling stock a decade ago but I believe that now sits with Londoners who have Bakerloo and Central line stock in a really poor condition and covered in graffiti.

 

[Djgr]

Of course the other scandal consists of all the jobs in London that could just as easily be located somewhere else at lower cost and with higher quality.