Sweet words won’t reverse sour trends in the north – it needs real investment
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Version 0 of 1. Everything Simon Jenkins says about Manchester is true (Osborne’s vanity projects spell doom for the north, 25 February). It is a city both shiny and ravaged. I am also an outsider, although it is dear to my heart as I was an art student there in the 70s and both my children have studied at the university. However, sometimes things can be seen more clearly from beyond the pale. Never a beautiful city, nevertheless it has been gifted charm and vitality by its citizens. This still holds good, and it has seamlessly absorbed wave after wave of immigrants, which is entirely due to its pragmatic and welcoming nature. It has expanded its universities and improved its infrastructure at an astonishing rate. In 40 years it has done good. However, there is a downside. In this rush to update it has ignored the need for green spaces, all the more vital in what is a damp and overcast part of the country. In my day there were parks and football pitches, many of which have simply disappeared. They supplied the green lungs that everyone needs to live and breathe. Having to accommodate the escalating number of students, south Manchester has been more or less concreted over; gardens have been filled in to make way for cars and dustbins; it is almost as if the policy has actually been “see a tree, chop it down”. In addition, street cleaning is at an all-time low and has not kept pace with the burgeoning population. The devil is in the detail: the passageways and twittens that run between the main streets have been neglected and abandoned; they are piled with rubbish and dead leaves, and nobody seems to care. Certainly not the buy-to-let landlords, who perform a vital role but only do the minimum to keep their properties habitable. And this is south Manchester, which although still reasonably safe is not as safe as it was. North Manchester is worse, and has many no-go areas. In the 70s it was run-down but not dangerous. Now areas have been abandoned to dereliction. It needs massive investment, and this is where the money from HS2 should have been spent.Julia JeffriesWinchelsea, Sussex • The government’s current policies under Osborne’s northern powerhouse rubric may not “spell doom for the north”, but they are clearly unbalanced geographically and underfunded. Jenkins falls into the trap of conflating the north with Manchester and the northwest. Any rebalancing of the national economy must include the north-east. East-west transport links and infrastructure projects, including civic spending, are essential for north-east regeneration. For the northern powerhouse to have any credibility then, it is the north as a whole that must be empowered financially and politically. The corporate sector recognises this; unfortunately the north-east is bedevilled by the paucity of vision demonstrated by many of its Labour politicians, who lag behind their counterparts in Manchester and the north-west. Spending projects do need to be shifted from London to the north. However, Labour’s regional politicians need to better demonstrate their capability of working together if the case is to be made and funding to be secured. We are happy to help them achieve this.Ian JonesChair, Middlesbrough & East Cleveland Lib Dems • Twice in his article, Simon Jenkins describes Osborne’s “northern initiative” as “sincere”, but where is the evidence to substantiate this? Far more likely is the point that the “northern powerhouse” was clearly an election vote-winning wheeze, which appealed to a Tory party thinking itself, at best, to be a partner in a coalition government after May 2015. Then, of course, the Lib Dems could be blamed for its shelving. The Guardian recently reported that 83% of the government’s £300m relief fund will go to Tory-run councils, mostly in the south (Council cuts: PM accused of buying off MPs, 10 February); this is not simply deplorable, but indicative of the ridiculous bias this administration shows for southern England. With none of this extra money designated to help the five most deprived councils in the country, all of which unsurprisingly are in the northern half of England, and with none of the proposed improvements in transport even off the ground, this ludicrous sham, and any suggestions of Osborne’s sincerity, must stop.Bernie EvansLiverpool • Michael Wilshaw’s warning that poor schools threaten the “northern powerhouse” (Report, 24 February) puts the cart before the horse. Northern students are significantly less well funded than those in the south, they have fewer career opportunities given higher rates of unemployment, and a larger proportion come from impoverished backgrounds. These are not “excuses”; they are conditions that, as a matter of record, have a damaging effect on educational application and progress. His call for “bloody-mindedness” and “grit” from local authorities and school leaders is a lame repetition of the aggressive approach he has recommended since his first day in post. In another article in the same edition, you refer to the number of infants who cannot access free nursery education. Bearing in mind the above, the costs you quote and the reference to how few childminders are available in Hull compared to Bromley, I suspect that this is also a far larger problem in the north than elsewhere. Wilshaw might also wish to consider whether it should be the priority of schools to ensure that the “northern powerhouse” is provided with skilled students to animate it. Surely the priority of schools is to provide a quality and variety of learning that will establish the foundations for lifelong learning.Ian RobertsBaildon, West Yorkshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com |