'So much for the Tory talk on levelling up - councils are stretched to the bone'

21 January 2023 , 22:21

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Chips down for the north

Tell you how long I’ve been away from the north of England... I went to get twice from the chippy the other night and took £10. Barely covered a scallop butty.

Just shy of £18 for twice, in East Leeds, which is the biggest shock I’ve had in a long time.

It’s probably the nearest we’ll get to levelling up, to be honest.

Without wanting to go all nostalgic, that chippy round the corner from my house is on a parade of shops that used to be thriving.

Sweet shop, hairdressers, nice little offie, greengrocers and all that.

Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade

Now there’s the chippy, a bookies (not complaining), a sort of supermarket thing done out like 30s Russia and a dog grooming place that I’ve never EVER seen a dog go in or out of.

'So much for the Tory talk on levelling up - councils are stretched to the bone'

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (James Maloney/Lancs Live)

It’s crying out for a rethink – like most little parades of shops in the UK. But, more than that, it’s crying out for a bit of cash spending on it.

That’s what we thought we were in for this week. Not my shops necessarily, but a nice injection of cash from the latest tranche of the levelling up fund for Yorkshire as a whole.

At least the north-west did OK – not that there’s any trans-Pennine jealousy here – £354million out of the £2.1billion pot. Problem is the south-east coming second – £210m. And London getting £151m. That’s not what this Government promised when it came in. Of course there are areas of the south-east and London that need the cash but the north was supposed to be a priority. The north-east got just £108m, which strikes me as not nearly enough.

Yorkshire got £120m – £20m of which is going to Catterick, coincidentally in Mr Sunak’s constituency and the only bit of North Yorkshire that got any loot.

Meantime, councils are stretched to the bone and cutting vital services. And there are areas of the country that desperately, desperately needed – and still need – a cash injection. Ignored again. Are we surprised, though? This is the PM who told a garden party in Tonbridge, Kent, he’d undone Labour’s policy of “shoving all the funding into deprived urban areas”.

He said: “I managed to start changing the funding formulas to make sure that areas like this are getting the funding they deserve.”

The whole thing is broken. Philip Rycroft, a former top Brexit civil servant, said the process is “completely crackers”. He added: “£2bn of public money is being distributed across the nation by civil servants who have probably not been to the vast majority of the places they are distributing money to. How can this be sensible?”

West Midlands mayor (Tory) Andy Street, who got loads of bids from his area rejected, says: “Whitehall’s bidding and begging-bowl culture is broken.”

Even better, Labour’s Lisa Nandy, left, reckons it’s like The Hunger Games. Can’t remember the ending of that, but I don’t think it works out well for the Government.