Transport Spending Inequality

[Spartacus]

For most people they were moved closer to London, with Leeds and Birmingham moved to MK (with many staff leaving as soon as they could). Even for those coming from Paddington it was a significant move across London, which many couldn’t justify.

That Network Rail tried selling the move to MK by comparing it to London when not only were most not coming from London but almost all the metrics of MK were worse than where they were coming from told it all.

 

[Harpo]

I would hardly call Milton Keynes a small town!

Fair point. I wasn’t being sizeist (honest) but MFK and its environs was never going to yield a major pool of untapped railway expertise, experienced or otherwise.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2025 ==

It was more than that for most of the train planners, it centralised Paddington, Birmingham and Leeds.

Paddington and divisional TPUs closed in 1984. WR was Swindon.

 

[BrianW]

Speculation overnight that £500m will be allocated in the Spending Review to Wales for rail upgrades in SE and NE areas (South and North Wales Metros).
Immediately scorned by Plaid as they want Barnett consequentials for Wales from the HS2 project.
Nevertheless it would kick-start service development including Wrexham-Bidston (-Liverpool) and new stations on the SW main line.
Of course there may well be new funding for rail in England too.
We'll know by afternoon.

New stations for north and south Wales in £445m ten-year rail plan

Five new stations in Newport, Cardiff and Monmouthshire, plus upgrades in north Wales backed by Treasury.

www.bbc.co.uk

If this thread might take 'new' regarding the Spending Review, this item (leak? Pre-announcement?) was just about 'bang on'. Did it also 'reveal' the commitment of £2.5 Billion to continue East-West Rail Oxford to Cambridge- TEN TIMES as much as for the whole of Wales rail? Or have I missed the train? Maybe a further announcement next week by Heidi Alexander of the English Infrasructure Strategy?

 

[The exile]

Fair point. I wasn’t being sizeist (honest) but MFK and its environs was never going to yield a major pool of untapped railway expertise,

Nor to immediately set people’s heart racing with excitement at the prospect of moving there. I’m not trying to do MK down but I doubt it’s in many people’s top 10 dream relocation destinations unless they’ve got family ties.

 

[Spartacus]

Fair point. I wasn’t being sizeist (honest) but MFK and its environs was never going to yield a major pool of untapped railway expertise, experienced or otherwise.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2025 ==


Paddington and divisional TPUs closed in 1984. WR was Swindon.

No wonder I was so busy, I was working in a ghost office with ghost planners until I left in 2014. Even if they were pulling their weight, how much does a ghost weigh anyway?!

 

[Djgr]

For most people they were moved closer to London, with Leeds and Birmingham moved to MK (with many staff leaving as soon as they could). Even for those coming from Paddington it was a significant move across London, which many couldn’t justify.

That Network Rail tried selling the move to MK by comparing it to London when not only were most not coming from London but almost all the metrics of MK were worse than where they were coming from told it all.

So doesn't sound like a great counter-example then

 

[Spartacus]

So doesn't sound like a great counter-example then

It was a joke, but then again the move to MK was for many anyway. Tried telling people in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire that the transport links are better and the houses are cheaper in Milton Keynes and people would have laughed if they weren’t so angry. Both with expansive rail & road links, and airports, both with areas with good priced housing, vital on an NR planner’s salary; it was no surprise so many jumped ship, everyone else payed more! Even the crime stats were worse in MK, and you can hardly compare it to Leeds or Brum for a social life.

It was just trying to sell it to the suits in London, two fingers to the majority.

 

[The Planner]

Fair point. I wasn’t being sizeist (honest) but MFK and its environs was never going to yield a major pool of untapped railway expertise, experienced or otherwise.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2025 ==


Paddington and divisional TPUs closed in 1984. WR was Swindon.

Paddington was one of the last three. Swindon went way before it.

 

[Harpo]

Paddington was one of the last three. Swindon went way before it.

Other way around. Paddington TPU went to Swindon in ‘84 when the GW division folded.

 

[The Planner]

Other way around. Paddington TPU went to Swindon in ‘84 when the GW division folded.

Swindon, Crewe, Manchester etc all got subsumed later on. The last three train planning offices in 2010 before the MK move were as I said. Paddington was in Tournament House

 

[Magdalia]

Sometimes they do but often they don't. Sometimes doesn't justify a general policy

The general policy is to progressively relocate the civil service out of London, and it has been going on for more than half a century. But it is necessarily a gradual progress, as is demonstrated by the disruptive effects of the Network Rail relocation to Milton Keynes discussed above.

As it happens the Spending Review document includes this on relocation:

1.22 The government is committed to developing a civil service which is more integrated with the communities it serves. Successes like the Darlington Economic Campus have demonstrated how the civil service can operate effectively in different communities while supporting regional growth. The government will continue to relocate more roles out of London, and, by 2030, will reduce the number of civil servants based in London by 12,000 and have 50% of UK-based senior civil servants in regional offices across the UK. The relocation strategy is designed to save taxpayers’ money and ensure the government better reflects the country it serves. 1.23 To support the relocation of roles out of Whitehall, SR25 invests £244 million to complete the development of new government hubs. This includes the Darlington Economic Campus in Brunswick Street, which will be home to 1,400 civil servants from across a range of government departments, the Manchester First Street Hub, which will accommodate 2,600 civil servants, and the York Central Hub, home to 2,600 civil servants. This investment will help redevelop these areas and provide a boost to their regional economies

 

[Djgr]

The general policy is to progressively relocate the civil service out of London, and it has been going on for more than half a century. But it is necessarily a gradual progress, as is demonstrated by the disruptive effects of the Network Rail relocation to Milton Keynes discussed above.

As it happens the Spending Review document includes this on relocation:

The key line from this is:

The relocation strategy is designed to save taxpayers’ money and ensure the government better reflects the country it serves.

Well yes indeed.

And so some of the apparent additional value that London apparently kindly earns for the rest of us is no such thing. In fact, the rest of the country has been subsidising the location of many jobs in London, redistributing value towards the capital.

 

[The Ham]

Selective statistics at play.

The report only compares with London, if you look at the Southeast they get less infrastructure spending than the Northwest.

Also it's infrastructure spending, so where TfL had it's day to day funding covered by the fare box London isn't getting the day to day spend for operating services which other regions get.

If you include that spending you may well get a different number.

Big ticket items at the capacity constraints can bring benefits further afield. An obvious example is the rebuild of Reading station which had allowed additional services to the Southwest and Wales bit the spending certainly isn't in those regions.

That's not to say that there shouldn't be more funding for infrastructure (far from it), however the data is clear if we really want to spend money on the most deprived region on infrastructure spending then it's the Southwest with the second lowest being the East Midlands. The Northwest does relatively well (not as good as London, but still fairly high up the table).

 

[Krokodil]

if you look at the Southeast they get less infrastructure spending than the Northwest.

The SE did have a head start though, most lines were already electrified.

 

[kevjs]

Is this about that article bemoaning how the per capita spend has been much higher in London/ South East over the last decade?

It's a bit of an oversimplification - whilst I'm not saying other areas don't deserve funding (they obviously do), London is at the point where most meaningful interventions are megaprojects like crossrail. Other places can have meaningful enhancements without doing that kind of thing or spending that kind of money.

Does Nottingham need projects on the scale of the Elizabeth Line & Thameslink - no it doesn't.

But taking the London and East Midlands per person averages into account and focusing on Greater Nottingham alone that's around the equivalent of 10 (ten) phase 2's of NET in transport funding we've lost out on over the last decade - now if we'd have seen a NET Phase 3 delivered, and works underway extending NET into Fairham/Giltbrook, Electrification of the lines into our diesel only station, and a more comprehensive investment in a fuller network of high quality cycle facilities we'd have seen pretty transformative change to our transport networks, and probably still have a discrepancy compared to London.

Seeing places like Leeds remaining the largest city in western Europe without a rail based transit network, Liverpool/Manchester/Sheffield/Nottingham (four of our 10 largest cities) and the three Mainline Railways to the north connected by an undersized, slow, infrequent train service on dated rolling stock, and the too-small trains on the Cross Country network are very visible reminders of the underinvestment in our cities in the North and Midlands

(And I've no problem understanding that London needs things like the Bakerloo Line Extension and Thamesmead being added to London rail network as well)

 

[muddythefish]

Like the Department of Health being the focal point of regeneration at Quarry Hill in Leeds and the BBC being the focal point of regeneration at Media City in Salford?

I was talking to a (very) senior DoH official recently and she said there was no reason for the department to be based in London at all. All the work could be done anywhere else in the country

The same would presumably apply to the The Department of Transport. Would transport links in the north be vastly improved if the DoT were based in (say) Bradford and civil servants had to suffer like everyone else from the decades of under investment? I think they would

On another note, it was disappointing to see the lack of new money for the south west - there's so many good schemes (such as Tavistock) down there that have been on the drawing board for years yet seem to be as far away as ever

 

[BrianW]

I was talking to a (very) senior DoH official recently and she said there was no reason for the department to be based in London at all. All the work could be done anywhere else in the country

The same would presumably apply to the The Department of Transport. Would transport links in the north be vastly improved if the DoT were based in (say) Bradford and civil servants had to suffer like everyone else from the decades of under investment? I think they would

On another note, it was disappointing to see the lack of new money for the south west - there's so many good schemes (such as Tavistock) down there that have been on the drawing board for years yet seem to be as far away as ever

Is not the HQ for the long overdue Great British Railways still expected at Derby?

And regarding the south west (well connected to Derby by XC?), how many Labour MPs are there down there, miles from London, and Derby?

 

[Magdalia]

I was talking to a (very) senior DoH official recently and she said there was no reason for the department to be based in London at all. All the work could be done anywhere else in the country

NHS England is based in Leeds. It is going to be interesting to see what happens when it is abolished.

Is not the HQ for the long overdue Great British Railways still expected at Derby?

I think so. I have just checked National Highways and, bizarrely, their HQ is in Guildford.

On another note, it was disappointing to see the lack of new money for the south west

The Bristol area got £0.8 bn in the 4 June transport capital funding announcement.

 

[muddythefish]

Is not the HQ for the long overdue Great British Railways still expected at Derby?

And regarding the south west (well connected to Derby by XC?), how many Labour MPs are there down there, miles from London, and Derby?

Yes, but the DfT, which holds the purse strings and makes the big decisions, is in London. The proposal is to get the decision makers out of the capital, not just the back offices and outposts

I'm sure the relative lack of spending in southwest is for political reasons

 

[muddythefish]

The Bristol area got £0.8 bn in the 4 June transport capital funding announcement.

By southwest I meant Devon and Cornwall, specifically the long-awaited Tavistock reopening and the Cullompton / Exeter "metro" scheme

 

[Krokodil]

The Bristol area got £0.8 bn in the 4 June transport capital funding announcement.

I don't suppose that there will be any electric wires in the next century or so?

 

[BrianW]

By southwest I meant Devon and Cornwall, specifically the long-awaited Tavistock reopening and the Cullompton / Exeter "metro" scheme

Indeed. Bristol is ONLY 120 miles from London. Lands End is 300 miles from London. While Carlisle is 320 miles from London, it is only 120 miles from Manchester.

The MP for Torridge and Tavistock is the booming Conservative former Attorney-General Sir Geoffrey Cox; the MP for Central Devon is the current Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride.

 

[BlueLeanie]

NHS England is based in Leeds. It is going to be interesting to see what happens when it is abolished.

They are already identifying considerable barriers to its abolition.

One of the key ones is what used to be known as "NHS Digital"

 

[TPO]

I often wonder. Is London so wealthy that it justifies transport, or does the transport make it wealthy?

I rather suspect the latter is the driver, and the provision of facilities creates the opportunities which suck resources in from other places. The transport created the city. And I often think that HS2 is all about extending the London suburbs into Birmingham, nothing to do with improving the prospects of Birmingham as a place.

So, by that argument, then we should spend more elsewhere to level up.

Plus, the idea that London somehow subsidises the rest of the the UK is only credible if you take a very narrow view of who provides what to whom.

I wonder how long London would last if it had to build all it's own power generation capacity within the M25, grow its own food, capture and store its own water for drinking.....

It's the odd thing really that only certain things are valued, but actually the regional environment and ecosystem provides London with a massive hidden subsidy. Same for other big cities such as Birmingham or Liverpool. Valleys in Wales were flooded to provide water so that inhabitants of cities in the Midlands/NW no longer had to rely on boreholes, and so could use more water and grow. But there was a cost- and "cofiwch dryweryn" (remember Tryweryn- reference to the drowning of the Welsh village Capel Celyn in Cwm Tryweryn in 1965- the valley flooded by a dam to provide water for Liverpool) became the slogan expressing dissent. Not just about what was done, but how it was done, and who benefited at the expense of others. London taxes only subsidise regions if you discount all of the basic stuff- much at below true cost or even free- coming from the regions.

TPO

 

[irish_rail]

Indeed. Bristol is ONLY 120 miles from London. Lands End is 300 miles from London. While Carlisle is 320 miles from London, it is only 120 miles from Manchester.

The MP for Torridge and Tavistock is the booming Conservative former Attorney-General Sir Geoffrey Cox; the MP for Central Devon is the current Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride.

Yes but there are many a Labour MP in Devon and Cornwall since last year. They must feel they've been dealt a pretty rough hand on this one. Nothing meaningful transport wise for Devon and Cornwall , whilst yet more money is thrown at the North. If I hear one more mention of a north south divide I swear I'll scream! It's very much a south east vs the rest divide, although I'd argue in recent years, spending on transport in the north west has been absolutely none stop.

 

[Magdalia]

I often wonder. Is London so wealthy that it justifies transport, or does the transport make it wealthy?

I rather suspect the latter is the driver, and the provision of facilities creates the opportunities which suck resources in from other places.

No the wealth justifies the transport. The recent success of London is built on financial services, which grew rapidly after deregulation in the 1980s. Big international banks didn't come to London in the 1980s because of the transport links. The transport links came to London to ease the constraints on growth.

The same is happening in Cambridge now.

 

[43066]

No the wealth justifies the transport. The recent success of London is built on financial services, which grew rapidly after deregulation in the 1980s. Big international banks didn't come to London in the 1980s because of the transport links. The transport links came to London to ease the constraints on growth.

The same is happening in Cambridge now.

And in Leeds, now there’s a UK city with real ambition and potential.

 

[Krokodil]

The transport links came to London to ease the constraints on growth.

Many of the transport links that enabled the growth in the first place were already there - most of the Underground, plus the Southern's 3rd rail network. I dare say that Metrolink has helped Manchester a lot, more recently.

Property around London and its metro area is far too expensive. Investing in transport links to and within other parts of the UK will encourage jobs to spread out.

 

[muddythefish]

I rather suspect the latter is the driver, and the provision of facilities creates the opportunities which suck resources in from other places. The transport created the city. And I often think that HS2 is all about extending the London suburbs into Birmingham, nothing to do with improving the prospects of Birmingham as a place.

Yes, agreed. I'm sure that the Treasury (which runs the country, not politicians) always viewed HS2 as another commuter line into London and had no intention of building it to the north. Hence when Rishi Sunak needed money for some pre-election bribes (sorry, policies) the Treasury suggested the cancellation of the northern leg.

 

[The Ham]

The SE did have a head start though, most lines were already electrified.

The point I was making that was that the "report" is cherry picking data to make a point which people have used to feed their own perceptions.

Look back through the thread and people were saying London and the South East, the report only talked about London as the South East would drag the London number down significantly. However, people appear to have assumed that the report included the South East in the higher spending as it fits a wider view that the South East also gets a significant share of the spending.

The point I was making was that actually all the regions have infrastructure spending far short of what London has and actually there are some areas of the North which do as well as the South East and actually the regions which have the lowest spending aren't in the North.

No the wealth justifies the transport. The recent success of London is built on financial services, which grew rapidly after deregulation in the 1980s. Big international banks didn't come to London in the 1980s because of the transport links. The transport links came to London to ease the constraints on growth.

Since the 1980's there's been some new transport links, however the majority of the rail and underground lines existed a long time before that.

The only new line (not extending an existing line) since 1980 is the Elizabeth line, a significant percentage of which was funded by local taxes.