No money for projects outside of London

[Ali195]

True, the nearest train is a 40 minute drive from me and it goes about 28 mph. Talk about high speed rail, we have ultra slow speed rail since long before I was born and nothing has ever changed and there are no plans to upgrade anything.

Spent many a year commuting on those trains during the 2000’s. Two carriages max, never got to full speed before hitting next one horse village, crowded, ancient sock. Was basically a bus on wheels trundling along between 30-40mph most of the journey.

Caught it for the first time in probably 16 years during Autumn, same old, just newer stock. Absolutely packed out.

Vast majority prefer to drive, and do because of the above, add goods into the mix and these little country train lines have zero chance of being touched. The adjacent motorways though, lots of upgrades turning them into proper dual carriageways with overpasses.

It’s just too costly, slow and expensive to upgrade our infrastructure, something I hope can Labour can start working to fix by removing the nimbys, reducing extent of environmental considerations and just get flippin’ building! I get there is no silver bullet and there are always losers, beit people or surrounding environment but starting to feel like doom loop cycle of promise, fail to even get shovels in ground, eye watering sums spent on consultation, planning, legal blockers.

 

[StriderX]

Probably a little controversial but I travel to London fairly often for work and, I get it. All the action is down there in terms of the economy, it feels like travelling to a different country in all honesty. If they can get people into and out of London more quickly, it'll boost the economy way quicker than anything they'd do up here.

Except it won't.

Trying to squeeze London further simply isn't enough to keep the country going anymore, it's overfinancialised and dragging every other industry into the ground even in it's own environs let alone anywhere else. Then there's the resentment and political backlash that will only get more economically damaging for London and thus the rest of the country, eventually the electorate will simply reject giving London anything else and then what?

 

[GreatAuk]

The lack of investment over many decades is particularly obvious up North, but is the case all over the country tbh. Even though London has had a lot more spent on it (arguably rightly to try and keep our most successful city running, although this has also contributed to skewing the economy because of how much more it got than other cities) there are all sorts of projects for upgrading tube lines, building crossrail 2 etc which should really have happened but have also been delayed or canceled. The way the treasury evaluates the cost:benefit ratio of different projects does favour London, which is one reason it has ended up with more investment, but fundamentally that's a political decision about how they choose to bias spending.

Compare the infrastructure in mid sized British cities to what say French cities have and they're just so far ahead.

Outside the odd pocket of regeneration most of the country feels like it's in decline tbh, gradually getting more run down.

I was hoping that Labour might have been the party to unblock some major investment projects, but instead it's just more cuts. I really struggle to see how we're going to get out of this rut tbh. I guess a lot of this is downstream of the economy being full of unproductive low paid jobs, and that coupled with it being extremely expensive to do or build anything new due to slow bureaucratic processes adding huge cost overheads, lack of proper industrial strategies, expensive land, expensive power, poor infrastructure etc means that there just isn't that much room for transformative investment projects.
This is not what a happy economy looks like: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/mwb6/ukea

 

[arknor]

Is it just me or do we seem to still have a North / South divide when it comes to infrastructure projects?

why would they want to generate investment outside of london? when they can keep everything central in london...

does any other country do the same?

didnt the north want 20m to fix some a1 road recently and got denied

Outside the odd pocket of regeneration most of the country feels like it's in decline tbh, gradually getting more run down.

been saying that for years, most areas look like a balkan country now, we just need to change the signs and geoguessers will never guess the UK

potholes everywhere, cracks in road surfaces etc, overgrown bushes, shrubs , trees you name it.

rubbish on the floor etc, why would anyone have pride when the councils don;t?


you know the great north run, that's the one time they cut all the shrubs around the foot bridge entrance to the town moor...


councils seem to have money to invest in hotels and other daft ideas... the same for pedestrianizing roads for all of 5 minutes until the locals sabotage them all the time.
why's there tens of millions for stupid stuff but the bare minimums don't get done?


You know when I look at Newcastles city centre, and I see it in decline, the usual charity shops, cex, cash converters etc, the turkish barbers, the american candy shops...

then I remember the council owns most of the citys shopping centre.

why would they want to have flourishing shops outside of that? there's literally no incentive
they have to double down and try to make the mall not look like a really terrible investment, even if it means the city centre suffers as a result.

thats the kinda leadership this country seems to promote to the top


I watched this video recently

the mayor seems obsessed with red tape.... and totally out of her depth,.... that's how i imagine every councillor in the UK and every MP
5:26 lol the guy sitting next to her is like "your cooked" and moves the mic so she can stop embarrassing herself...

Trump literally makes her look like an idiot.

 

[I kill Bunnies]

We need much better train routes between the Northern cities, I know the terrain doesn't help, but in Switzerland their trains travel for miles through mountains to connect smaller cities, so it can be done.

 

[StriderX]

Trains are a dead end frankly as much as I like them existing.

We should focus all efforts on transitioning even the humble car to air taxi only and get rid of all these nasty roads.

 

[Hagar]

I did hear that in the south West they will be mining again for lithium and rare earth metals. It's a pity that most miners are long in the ground themselves.

Unless it is strip mining of course.

 

[Koalaboy]

I did hear that in the south West they will be mining again for lithium and rare earth metals. It's a pity that most miners are long in the ground themselves.

Unless it is strip mining of course.

And the abysmal transport links won't help.

The South-West, especially south of Bristol, is almost abandoned. There's very little investment and many cities just rely on tourism which is getting worse each year and not really sustainable.
They talk about bringing technology down here, but it rarely happens. Sure, you have places like the Met Office, but they pay so poorly compared to equivalent jobs elsewhere (unless you're a contractor).

Unless they improve the transport links, it will stay disconnected. I actually feel worse for 'The North' as they have much better connections etc., and yet are still massively underfunded compared to London.

It seems that unless you're within an approximate 100 mile radious of London, you're pretty much left out.

 

[bobuk]

For the southwest England ends at Bristol.

 

[200sols]

t seems that unless you're within an approximate 100 mile radious of London, you're pretty much left out.

Not even that far. Road and rail links are terrible down here, the Portsmouth direct line to London is slow and rail links to the North are even slower. The lack of investment in infrastructure is evident everywhere really, crappy housing estates tacked onto villages and towns with no thought for the needs of the residents meaning the existing roads become a nightmare to use.

That said London is an alpha city and it would make no sense for us to not continue to improve it, doing so generates a lot of wealth for this country that often gets spent outside of the south east.

 

[malachi]

The UK Government never cared about anything outside of the M25 and never will.

The HS2 just proves that.

England looks to be only country in Europe who invests all their resources into the capital city and nowhere else in the country.

 

[throwaway4372]

There has been a north-south divide for at least my whole life, I remember learning about it at school. However, on the odd occasion I go to London I find myself thinking it's a dump and I can't wait to leave. IMO remote work is the way forward, let the population spread out a bit now they don't need to be physically together for their jobs.

 

[malachi]

There has been a north-south divide for at least my whole life, I remember learning about it at school. However, on the odd occasion I go to London I find myself thinking it's a dump and I can't wait to leave. IMO remote work is the way forward, let the population spread out a bit now they don't need to be physically together for their jobs.

Yeah but business aren't going for that. They are all bringing everyone back in to the office now.

 

[John J Sheridan]

Heathrow 3rd runway will never happen. Too many legal objections and the cost will be enormous. They should have done what the Ryan Air bloke said and dropped APD (Air Passenger Duty) as that would encourage more people to visit the UK and spend money.

If you're going to build another runway then put it further up-North so people don't have to come all the way down to Heathrow to catch a plane abroad to certain countries ie America and Australia, NZ

 

[sidimmu]

If you're going to build another runway then put it further up-North so people don't have to come all the way down to Heathrow to catch a plane abroad to certain countries ie America and Australia, NZ

If they want another runway around London, it'll be so much easier to add another runway to Luton or Stansted, than it would at Heathrow or Gatwick.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Devil's advocate - the population of the south massively outweighs the north, so while it may not be appreciated by the north, there are a lot more people down south needing a lot more infrastructure.

 

[Stu999]

And Newcastle in particular, struggling to get final 6 million funding sign off for Tyne Bridge restoration. An iconic landmark.

Well, we were promised the funding and now Labour are trying to renege on it.

 

[malachi]

Devil's advocate - the population of the south massively outweighs the north, so while it may not be appreciated by the north, there are a lot more people down south needing a lot more infrastructure.

Because all the best job opportunities are gatekept in London. None of them want to branch out to other cities.

 

[Stu999]

The Heathrow runway thing is a looooong term project. Probably won't be finished for 25+ years.

RR says 10 years.

 

[Dis86]

Devil's advocate - the population of the south massively outweighs the north, so while it may not be appreciated by the north, there are a lot more people down south needing a lot more infrastructure.

Per capital spend is far higher in London/the south.