Daily Junction.mobi portalThe overall picture is clear: levelling up was a slogan, not a strategy. It delivered small-scale projects and tax breaks, not the transformational investment the North needs.
The current approach is not just unfair—it is economically inefficient. Concentrating growth in London and the South East has created overcrowding, unaffordable housing, and infrastructure strain in the South, while leaving talent and potential underutilised in the North.
A more balanced economy would be more productive overall. Research by the OECD and others shows that excessive concentration of economic activity in a single city or region reduces national productivity growth. The UK is an extreme outlier in this regard—no other major economy is as London-centric.
Rebalancing would also reduce political alienation. The Brexit vote and the collapse of the "Red Wall" in 2019 were driven partly by a sense that London and the South East were prospering while the North was left behind. Infrastructure investment is not a silver bullet for political discontent, but it is a tangible signal that the government cares about all regions, not just the capital.
The North-South infrastructure divide is a policy choice. It is the result of a Treasury methodology that favours already-successful areas, a political system that prioritises London, and a failure of ambition and investment that has persisted for decades.
The consequences are measurable: a widening productivity gap, underutilised economic potential, and deepening regional inequality. "Levelling up" promised to fix this and delivered almost nothing. HS2 was supposed to connect the country and ended up stopping at Birmingham.
The North does not need sympathy or small-scale projects. It needs transformational infrastructure investment on the scale that London has received for decades. Until that happens, the North-South divide will continue to widen, and the UK will continue to be one of the most regionally unequal countries in the developed world. The question is whether any government will have the courage and the resources to actually do something about it.