"The North Of England Is Getting A Rough Deal" discussion

[Rapidash]

Paignton to Exeter takes the same a similar time as Manchester to York, so its not exactly an unequal distance! They even have the right door configuration

Oh dear, I didnt mean to wind anyone up. If any of you guys ever head to Devon in the near future, I'm sure you'd understand the imaginary kleptomania of others areas stuff.

 

[Oswyntail]

Oh dear, I didnt mean to wind anyone up. If any of you guys ever head to Devon in the near future, I'm sure you'd understand the imaginary kleptomania of others areas stuff.

As has often been said before, the divide is not really North/South, it is London commuter belt v the rest. This, IMHO, explains the remarkable success in the West Midlands getting allocations

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Is it "Grim up North" ....

 

[Rapidash]

If the North West is classed as grim, then I can't imagine the descriptive of the South West. The amount of redevelopment I saw up there was quite staggering in contrast to here.

 

[CalderRail]

It's even money whether I get to ride a Pacer to work every morning from Hebden Bridge.

Even when it's supposed to be a 23m 2 car DMU, it gets replaced by a 19m Pacer Railbus.

What units we do get are tatty, worn out crap that needs a refurb - but if it ever got one it'd go somewhere else.

The only nice train I ever get to travel on is a Grand Central Class 180

 

[fowler9]

If the North West is classed as grim, then I can't imagine the descriptive of the South West. The amount of redevelopment I saw up there was quite staggering in contrast to here.

The population of the South West is miniscule compared to the North West. Not that the North West gets much investment compared to London but how much do you reckon the South West should get?

 

[ianhr]

The population of the South West is miniscule compared to the North West. Not that the North West gets much investment compared to London but how much do you reckon the South West should get?

Well the South West really has only one trunk line + numerous mostly single track branches, and so if it were to get investment on a London scale but proportionate to it's population it would presumably go a long way. Decent commuter services for Exeter and Plymouth to relieve chronic traffic congestion + reopening Okehampton-Tavistock-Plymouth and Barnstaple-Bideford + civilised rolling stock should be a minimum. Paignton-Kingswear should be reintegrated into the National network and the Steam Railway sent to play elsewhere if they cannot provide a useful public service.

 

[northwichcat]

It's even money whether I get to ride a Pacer to work every morning from Hebden Bridge.

Even when it's supposed to be a 23m 2 car DMU, it gets replaced by a 19m Pacer Railbus.

What units we do get are tatty, worn out crap that needs a refurb - but if it ever got one it'd go somewhere else.

The only nice train I ever get to travel on is a Grand Central Class 180

Pacers only have 15.5m carriages.
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Which is indicative of the tremendous success that TPE have had over the years......its a victim of its own success.

Peak time North TPE services were rammed under Arriva Trains Northern. The problem has always been the number of 185 carriages delivered was insufficient for the number of passengers.

 

[Rapidash]

The population of the South West is miniscule compared to the North West. Not that the North West gets much investment compared to London but how much do you reckon the South West should get?

A damn sight more than £19 per person! The only guys who get less are North Yorkshire!

 

[northwichcat]

I used TPE just after the peak in the morning and afternoon out of Manchester and Liverpool, they were at most 60% full on the majority journeys I took. The trip back from York on thursday afternoon/evening was the busier of the lot, and even then, people were standing when seats were available.

So you went on off-peak services which were 60% full. That's better than other operators off-peak. I once went on a Southeastern service that people were moaning about 'only' 4 carriages instead of 8 being on that service and it had empty seats on the 4 carriage train on arrival in London.

Be thankful you have such a frequent service up there on the express for commuting, made me a bit jelly!

Many lines up north only have 1tph even in the peak and sometimes there's a 70 minute gap between services at peak time due to trying to fit the 'hourly' service around the other operator's services. Manchester-Leeds (which has a very high frequency compared to other North of England routes) hardly gets any trains compared to Wolverhampton-Birmingham, so think about how lucky those West Midlands commuters are!
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A damn sight more than £19 per person! The only guys who get less are North Yorkshire!

You're comparing a county with a region!

 

[Rapidash]

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


You're comparing a county with a region!

Thats because thats how the stats were broken down!

 

[northwichcat]

Thats because thats how the stats were broken down!

The stats on the government website are by region and say 'Yorkshire & Humber' not 'North Yorkshire'

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/...it Note - regional transport spending _2_.pdf

What I don't think anyone's mentioned is the 'East' gets the most funding from central government. While most regions get more funding from local*authorities*and*public*corporations than they do from central government the exceptions being the South East, East, East Midlands and Yorkshire & Humber.

 

[tbtc]

Start by relocating govt departments. Sir Humphrey might push for more electrification if he had to endure a 150 from the Ribble Valley to Manchester every day

How many Government staff are you talking about?

Many departments are based elsewhere in the UK - the Met Office moved to Exeter a few years ago, there's NS&I in Glasgow/ Durham/ Blackpool, off the top of my head.

But if you take the position that it makes sense for those close to the inner workings of Government to be physically close to where Government takes place (Westminster), then how many staff do you think you could relocate out of the Capital?

Look at the fuss/ costs when the BBC moved a couple of bits of its operation to Salford - that's a lot of money to spend just to redress the balance a tiny amount.

The vast majority of those in the Armed Forces are based far from London at air bases/ barracks in the rest of the UK.

Many other "Government" jobs are either already contracted out to private sector companies (Serco, Atos, A4E, Capita - so are something that Westminster cannot control the location of) or are based where they need to be (e.g. near the schools/ hospitals that the staff need to represent).

Then close down the Houses of Parliament (sell it off to the Russians for apartments), and relocate parliament outside London. It doesn't have to be in the capital

Impossible (and a bit envious)

Rail can help massively to bridge the north-south divide. Electrification of every route creating better and faster links would help enormously. Plus more rolling stock of course and reopenings of lines such as Woodhead and Ripon - Northallerton.

Do you think that this is going to make any difference to the north-south "divide" though?

I think the OP includes rather too much levity for what is essentially an important debate

It's hard to take some of the trenchent views from either side entirely seriously, and I don't think it a terrible idea to try to point that out

The railways in England have been held back by the dead hand of Westminster over the past twenty years and it has been the devolved nations which have shown the way on investment in the railway network

By "the devolved nations", I take it you only really mean "Scotland"?

The Welsh (Assembly) Government's main achievements in the field of rail are to set up the Premier Class "WAG Express" so that the political class can travel down from Holyhead to Cardiff with a restaurant service (and to get out the begging bowl when they promised to pay for Valleys electrification and then realised that they couldn't get Westminster to pay for it).

Things in Northern Ireland are pretty much "steady as she goes" in terms of the railways since Stormont took back powers in the late '90s (some would argue that they've shown that it's possible to increase passenger numbers without privitisation - which I think is an interesting point - but I don't think that I'd use Norn Iron as an example of how the grass is greener in "the devolved nations".

Lastly, Scotland still has it's 314s / 318s / 320s... the investment hasn't reached all corners.

For those who don't know London travel patterns, this graph may come as a surprise:
http://londontransportdata.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/weekday-morning-peak-travel-into-central-london.png
It shows that for most of the last 60 years, over 1 million people travel into London every day and at least 60% travel by rail, now tending to 75%. The roads into London are at capacity.
I suspect that commuting modes in northern cities are probably the inverse of those figures and journeys are on average much shorter

That's very interesting - I didn't realise that the numbers commuting in every day were *that* high (but it does show that the population of Greater London isn't a good benchmark when assessing the number of people that use the railway down there)

train travel in the north tends to be for shorter duistancesm therfore iven you don't need many people paying 40ppm compared with 30ppm per day when they are traveling 30 miles rather than 10 to 15 miles before a TOC has earned an extra £1 million (I make it about 600 people). Therefore when an a eveluation of a project over a 40 year period is undertaken that extra money can easily turn it from a scheme which is unlikely to see the light of day in the next 30 years to a scheme which is essential for the next control period

Interesting way of looking at it - that does show why some schemes down south have more attractive figures

And not forgetting that now that the Westfield site is underway, a Bradford Crossrail is now all but impossible. However many businesses in this area did support the idea, and many actively campaigned for it during the 10 year window that it had while the site was a ruddy great hole in the ground

So the reason that Bradford Crossrail cannot happen is because of all the money being invested in central Bradford (by Westfield).

But what would Bradford Crossrail have really "solved"?

• Not having to reverse trains at Interchange?
• A direct service from Ilkley to Halifax?
• Erm...

Nothing seems like a major priority

So are you saying the number of people from the North who travel to London for meetings, TV programs etc. on a daily basis is cancelled out by the number of people who travel to the North for similar reasons?

As examples, one person I know who lives just outside Manchester and works for Fast Web Media (who have offices at MediaCity and in London) travels to London twice a week for work purposes. However, if you consider TV program Countdown (filmed at MediaCity) regulars Nick Hewer, Susie Dent and Rachel Riley all live down south

I'm saying that the population of "the north" stays pretty stable all day long - whereas the population of "London" increases significantly in the morning rush hour - by around a million by AM9's figures - so comparing one to the other isn't a great comparison.

The fact that three people from south to north to film Countdown doesn't make much of a difference

A 4 car 156 is cheaper to run than a 6 car 142, both formations are similar in length and capacity (if the 6 car 142 is formed of units with 2+2 seating) while a 6 car 143 or 144 is more expensive to run than a 6 car 142

I can't recall seeing a six coach Pacer in service (?), so I'm not sure that's a great comparison.

With regard to Scotland, I'd hardly call reinstating a route such as the Waverley, which shouldn't have closed in the first place, a "vanity project" and quite how anyone can comment on the passenger numbers, considering the first train hasn' t even run yet, I don't know

I would call it a vanity project (or "the price that Labour had to pay to maintain LibDem support for the coalition that the two parties had in the first Scottish Government").

For all of the moans on this forum that it's not going to be fullly double tracked/ electrified from day one (and that only one platform can accomodate a twelve carriage train), I'll happily come back here in five years time and eat humble pie if the passenger numbers are anywhere near the cost of this project (and it's half hourly frequency with modern trains).

There are much bigger problems in Scotland than this, but it's a handy political "sop" to an area without a railway (rather than a genuine priority)

More carriages on existing services and platform lengthening is never discussed, and it is what is strangling the network in the North (plus sorting out pinch points, passing loops etc)

Presumably because they aren't 'sexy' projects. Announcing the lengthening of Batley platform won't get on the national news.

Agreed.

The "north" would benefit from a lot of simple marginal upgrades - redoubling the chord at Dore will improve the service from Sheffield to Manchester (but it's not as "sexy" as reopening Woodhead, so a lot harder to get enthusiasts excited about)

Absolutely - investing in strategic economic infrastructure in order to encourage private sector growth in post-industrial communities is definitely comparable to communist command economics and China's Cultural Revolution, which resulted in mass starvation, widespread illiteracy, ethnic discrimination, and ultimately, several hundred thousand deaths.

Long-term strategic planning of infrastructure investment is literally the same principle as totalitarian social engineering, and we're only fortunate you were here in time to point it out before anyone accidentally caused a humanitarian crisis.

"QED" indeed - a case well and truly proven

What's your solution then?

We've a lot of capacity problems on the current network (in many parts of the UK), I think that we need to focus resources on them before we have the luxury of some "if we build it, they will come" SimCity approach to building lots of railway lines in the hope that this will magically attract private sector investment.

But, each to their own.

I have several friends who live and work in London. The thing they all have in common is that none of the industries they work in have any need to be in London other than that is where the infrastructure is. Building more infrastructure there is just creating more of a need for everything to be there. It is utterly ridiculous in my humble opinion

I'm not arguing with the first point - most jobs don't have to be in the cities that they are in - mine could easily be done from London or Aberdeen or Swansea (or, depressingly, off-shore), but I think that the railway needs to deal with the reality of where people are travelling to and meeting that demand.

I don't know how you locate thousands of jobs (and potentiall thousands more people - give that we are talking about family units) around the country without throwing an obscene amount of money at it (using the BBC/ Salford example) though.

 

[Oswyntail]

.....I don't know how you locate thousands of jobs (and potentiall thousands more people - give that we are talking about family units) around the country without throwing an obscene amount of money at it (using the BBC/ Salford example) though.

Jobs go where the employers find it cheaper to carry out their business, and where they can get the employees. At present, although costs in the SE are higher than elsewhere, and employees are feeling the costs closer to their wallet, housing and infrastructure in other parts of the UK are not sufficient to persuade them to leave. The standard response over the last 20 years or so has been to throw money at housing and infrastructure in the SE, which not only extends the definition of SE as housing expands, but it also exacerbates the problems of infrastructure.
I think what the majority of people who agree with the proposal in the thread title are suggesting is that, if a proper percentage of the money thrown at the SE were allocated to the Northern and South West regions, employers would (relatively) soon find the balance in favour of relocation has grown. Which I, and others, feel would be for the benefit of the country as a whole.
Throwing money at the SE is like any "quick fix" solution to any problem. It is not particularly quick, and fixes nothing.
(PS - I relocated to Leeds with the DH in '92. This was cost effective at the time, but the success of the project has been hampered by the unwillingness of Ministers to deal with anyone not on their doorstep)

 

[northwichcat]

I'm saying that the population of "the north" stays pretty stable all day long - whereas the population of "London" increases significantly in the morning rush hour - by around a million by AM9's figures - so comparing one to the other isn't a great comparison.

The fact that three people from south to north to film Countdown doesn't make much of a difference

I didn't say it did. I just gave an example of where people from the south would travel north or from the north would travel south and asking do overall the two cancel each other out.

People including John Humphrys, Jeremy Paxman, Naga Munchetty and Jon Kay all work on programs at MediaCity despite being based in the South. While there's numerous production crews move around the country on a regular basis and those are just the people who are well known. Likewise there's numerous people in the North who travel South for their work not just the one person who I referred to.

I can't recall seeing a six coach Pacer in service (?), so I'm not sure that's a great comparison.

I was trying to highlight that Pacers are cheap because they are small and aren't a cheap alternative to Sprinters on well utilised services.

Northern do operate 4 car 156s so on those services the Sprinters are the cheap option as providing an equivalent capacity Pacer formation would be more expensive.

 

[AM9]

I think what the majority of people who agree with the proposal in the thread title are suggesting is that, if a proper percentage of the money thrown at the SE were allocated to the Northern and South West regions, employers would (relatively) soon find the balance in favour of relocation has grown. Which I, and others, feel would be for the benefit of the country as a whole.

OK, so what is in your view, 'a proper percentage of the money thrown at the SE'?

 

[fowler9]

OK, so what is in your view, 'a proper percentage of the money thrown at the SE'?

I'd say that would be the same percentage per head of population.
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How many Government staff are you talking about?

Many departments are based elsewhere in the UK - the Met Office moved to Exeter a few years ago, there's NS&I in Glasgow/ Durham/ Blackpool, off the top of my head.

But if you take the position that it makes sense for those close to the inner workings of Government to be physically close to where Government takes place (Westminster), then how many staff do you think you could relocate out of the Capital?

Look at the fuss/ costs when the BBC moved a couple of bits of its operation to Salford - that's a lot of money to spend just to redress the balance a tiny amount.

The vast majority of those in the Armed Forces are based far from London at air bases/ barracks in the rest of the UK.

Many other "Government" jobs are either already contracted out to private sector companies (Serco, Atos, A4E, Capita - so are something that Westminster cannot control the location of) or are based where they need to be (e.g. near the schools/ hospitals that the staff need to represent).



Impossible (and a bit envious)



Do you think that this is going to make any difference to the north-south "divide" though?



It's hard to take some of the trenchent views from either side entirely seriously, and I don't think it a terrible idea to try to point that out



By "the devolved nations", I take it you only really mean "Scotland"?

The Welsh (Assembly) Government's main achievements in the field of rail are to set up the Premier Class "WAG Express" so that the political class can travel down from Holyhead to Cardiff with a restaurant service (and to get out the begging bowl when they promised to pay for Valleys electrification and then realised that they couldn't get Westminster to pay for it).

Things in Northern Ireland are pretty much "steady as she goes" in terms of the railways since Stormont took back powers in the late '90s (some would argue that they've shown that it's possible to increase passenger numbers without privitisation - which I think is an interesting point - but I don't think that I'd use Norn Iron as an example of how the grass is greener in "the devolved nations".

Lastly, Scotland still has it's 314s / 318s / 320s... the investment hasn't reached all corners.



That's very interesting - I didn't realise that the numbers commuting in every day were *that* high (but it does show that the population of Greater London isn't a good benchmark when assessing the number of people that use the railway down there)



Interesting way of looking at it - that does show why some schemes down south have more attractive figures



So the reason that Bradford Crossrail cannot happen is because of all the money being invested in central Bradford (by Westfield).

But what would Bradford Crossrail have really "solved"?

• Not having to reverse trains at Interchange?
• A direct service from Ilkley to Halifax?
• Erm...

Nothing seems like a major priority



I'm saying that the population of "the north" stays pretty stable all day long - whereas the population of "London" increases significantly in the morning rush hour - by around a million by AM9's figures - so comparing one to the other isn't a great comparison.

The fact that three people from south to north to film Countdown doesn't make much of a difference



I can't recall seeing a six coach Pacer in service (?), so I'm not sure that's a great comparison.



I would call it a vanity project (or "the price that Labour had to pay to maintain LibDem support for the coalition that the two parties had in the first Scottish Government").

For all of the moans on this forum that it's not going to be fullly double tracked/ electrified from day one (and that only one platform can accomodate a twelve carriage train), I'll happily come back here in five years time and eat humble pie if the passenger numbers are anywhere near the cost of this project (and it's half hourly frequency with modern trains).

There are much bigger problems in Scotland than this, but it's a handy political "sop" to an area without a railway (rather than a genuine priority)



Agreed.

The "north" would benefit from a lot of simple marginal upgrades - redoubling the chord at Dore will improve the service from Sheffield to Manchester (but it's not as "sexy" as reopening Woodhead, so a lot harder to get enthusiasts excited about)



What's your solution then?

We've a lot of capacity problems on the current network (in many parts of the UK), I think that we need to focus resources on them before we have the luxury of some "if we build it, they will come" SimCity approach to building lots of railway lines in the hope that this will magically attract private sector investment.

But, each to their own.



I'm not arguing with the first point - most jobs don't have to be in the cities that they are in - mine could easily be done from London or Aberdeen or Swansea (or, depressingly, off-shore), but I think that the railway needs to deal with the reality of where people are travelling to and meeting that demand.

I don't know how you locate thousands of jobs (and potentiall thousands more people - give that we are talking about family units) around the country without throwing an obscene amount of money at it (using the BBC/ Salford example) though.

I'm not talking about moving thousands of jobs from London and the South East. I'm just talking about stopping thousands of people from feeling they need to move there.

 

[Emyr]

A lot of the people I knew at Cardiff Uni who moved to London after graduating are pining for the fjiordsprovinces.

 

[Oswyntail]

OK, so what is in your view, 'a proper percentage of the money thrown at the SE'?

I'd say that would be the same percentage per head of population.....

In the earlier years, enough to stimulate the growth to rebalance the nation's economy. Once that has been achieved, then a policy of rough equilibrium would be sensible - allowing for the spikes of major projects.

 

[fowler9]

In the earlier years, enough to stimulate the growth to rebalance the nation's economy. Once that has been achieved, then a policy of rough equilibrium would be sensible - allowing for the spikes of major projects.

Well there you have it. Where do you want to open your companies new office? London with HS1, the new Thameslink, the new Crossrail, a possible HS2, a possible new Heathrow runway? Or Liverpool with the old Thameslink trains to get you to Manchester Airport and maybe some link in to HS2.

When people say that companies just want to be in London why do you reckon this is?

 

[yorksrob]

It's hard to take some of the trenchent views from either side entirely seriously, and I don't think it a terrible idea to try to point that out



By "the devolved nations", I take it you only really mean "Scotland"?

The Welsh (Assembly) Government's main achievements in the field of rail are to set up the Premier Class "WAG Express" so that the political class can travel down from Holyhead to Cardiff with a restaurant service (and to get out the begging bowl when they promised to pay for Valleys electrification and then realised that they couldn't get Westminster to pay for it).

Things in Northern Ireland are pretty much "steady as she goes" in terms of the railways since Stormont took back powers in the late '90s (some would argue that they've shown that it's possible to increase passenger numbers without privitisation - which I think is an interesting point - but I don't think that I'd use Norn Iron as an example of how the grass is greener in "the devolved nations".

Lastly, Scotland still has it's 314s / 318s / 320s... the investment hasn't reached all corners.

********

I would call it a vanity project (or "the price that Labour had to pay to maintain LibDem support for the coalition that the two parties had in the first Scottish Government").

For all of the moans on this forum that it's not going to be fullly double tracked/ electrified from day one (and that only one platform can accomodate a twelve carriage train), I'll happily come back here in five years time and eat humble pie if the passenger numbers are anywhere near the cost of this project (and it's half hourly frequency with modern trains).

There are much bigger problems in Scotland than this, but it's a handy political "sop" to an area without a railway (rather than a genuine priority)

Well, Scotland Certainly, but also Wales. Don't forget, they've also had the Ebbw Vale reopening, which for a country of 5 million people looks rather good compared to London's fiefdom of wonky guided busways.

Admittedly, Northern Ireland ploughs its own furrow as usual, but is holding its own.

With regard to Waverley, there is clearly a will for it in the local area so it's quite right and proper that the Government there sees this as a priority. I know some will only be happy spending billions on high speed race tracks, but in my opinion its the local routes and links that make a big difference, and this is supposedly a democracy of sorts, where Governments are supposed to respond to the will of their electors. I'm sure that the link will prove to be worth its weight in gold to the communities it will serve.

 

[AM9]

I'd say that would be the same percentage per head of population.

What has the population of a region got to do with the number of passengers?

 

[muddythefish]

OK, so what is in your view, 'a proper percentage of the money thrown at the SE'?

SE population about 8.5 million according to 2011 census.

Lancashire and Yorkshire population about 12 million.

So how about a 50 per cent increase on SE levels ?

 

[Oswyntail]

What has the population of a region got to do with the number of passengers?

Absolutely nothing. A region with no or poor transport infrastructure will have few passengers. However, potential passengers are relevant - and, of course what this thread is about.

 

[Hackneyite]

SE population about 8.5 million according to 2011 census.

Lancashire and Yorkshire population about 12 million.

So how about a 50 per cent increase on SE levels ?

No, population of London 2011 was 8.2 millio and the SE regions population was 8.6 million.

 

[HSTEd]

Now include the areas north of the Thames that are beholden to London - which is at least half way to Birmingham.

The actual population of the London complex comes out to something approaching 20 million people.
The North West hasn't got a chance against it.
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SE population about 8.5 million according to 2011 census.

Lancashire and Yorkshire population about 12 million.

So how about a 50 per cent increase on SE levels ?

For population purposes, London is not in the South East.

 

[fowler9]

A lot of the major infrastructure projects in this country seem to be based on keeping up with the number of people trying to get in to London. There are yet more trying to attract more people in to London. What I don't get is that a lot of companies have no physical or technological need to be there. Their staff could pay lower rent or mortgages and have shorter commutes elsewhere. The companies themselves could be paying lower rents elsewhere.

 

[Clip]

A lot of the major infrastructure projects in this country seem to be based on keeping up with the number of people trying to get in to London. There are yet more trying to attract more people in to London. What I don't get is that a lot of companies have no physical or technological need to be there. Their staff could pay lower rent or mortgages and have shorter commutes elsewhere. The companies themselves could be paying lower rents elsewhere.

If it was all about paying lower rents then do you not think that they wouldve moved elsewhere already?

I may be wrong here but most of the heavy industry we have and manufacturing we have does not even reside in London or the South East - look at where most of the car and steel plants are located.

So for the large industries that are here, be that financial or the new Tech stuff, the capital city is where they want and need to be. And then the support services for these outfits also need to be here and so on and so forth. The arguement of lower rents isnot a valid one im afraid.

 

[HSTEd]

A lot of the major infrastructure projects in this country seem to be based on keeping up with the number of people trying to get in to London. There are yet more trying to attract more people in to London. What I don't get is that a lot of companies have no physical or technological need to be there. Their staff could pay lower rent or mortgages and have shorter commutes elsewhere. The companies themselves could be paying lower rents elsewhere.

And yet people want to go to London anyway - that is the scale of the draw that a true World City is capable of.
Attempting to fight it without draconian measures like internal passports is an exercise in futility.

 

[fowler9]

If it was all about paying lower rents then do you not think that they wouldve moved elsewhere already?

I may be wrong here but most of the heavy industry we have and manufacturing we have does not even reside in London or the South East - look at where most of the car and steel plants are located.

So for the large industries that are here, be that financial or the new Tech stuff, the capital city is where they want and need to be. And then the support services for these outfits also need to be here and so on and so forth. The arguement of lower rents isnot a valid one im afraid.

They want to be there but they don't need to be there. I work for a massive company that are in fact involved in building some of these infrastructure projects. We have no major offices in London.