Yorkshire cuts self-defeating

DURING the election campaign, there were endless visits to Yorkshire by Tory shadow ministers, who all proclaimed their love for the region and promised to close the North-South divide.
By The Newsroom
Published 3rd Sep 2010, 23:35 BST
Updated 3rd Sep 2010, 23:36 BST

How hollow those words seem today with the news that Yorkshire Forward's funding is to be cut even further, with 40 per cent of its budget now being clawed back by Whitehall.

It is clear that the coalition has to make significant sacrifices to the spending programme that it inherited from Labour, but there is a risk that savings on this scale could be counter-productive.

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Recent months have seen the cancellation of the Sheffield Forgemasters loan, the shelving of numerous desperately needed transport plans and initial moves to scale back Yorkshire Forward.

If this was happening countrywide, the pill – although bitter – would be a little easier to swallow. But it is not.

As ever, a journey down the M1 reveals a very different picture.

Even though Transport Secretary Philip Hammond cannot endorse Yorkshire transport projects until the completion of the spending review next month, he has managed to find extra money to complete London's Crossrail scheme after Tory Mayor, Boris Johnson, threatened to resign over a five per cent cut to the scheme's budget. This is on top of a new 200m transport hub in London that Ministers are backing.

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In the months leading up to May, much was made of the need to "rebalance the economy". Whether people agree or disagree with regional development agencies themselves is of little importance; this

is not the issue. The challenge is persuading the powers-that-be that their responsibilities extend beyond the M25's perimeter.

The economic crisis has forced the public sector to focus sharply on two fundamental issues – the need to cut waste and prioritise spending with the sums left.

Asking an organisation the size of Yorkshire Forward to make such drastic savings in little more than a weekend will simply see pragmatism triumph over strategic choice; they will not have time to look at the bigger picture or at alternative funding streams.

They also will not have time to persuade Ministers to think again, unlike London which appears to have special indemnity from the spending cuts. Why?

Related topics:LondonYorkshireBoris Johnson