Government’s levelling up agenda ‘serves up bowl of very thin gruel for Mid Sussex’

The White Paper, a policy document setting out proposals for future legislation, outlines ‘twelve bold national missions’ to shift government focus and resources to Britain’s ‘forgotten communities’ between now and 2030.

The first mission for example states the aim to see pay, employment and productivity grow everywhere and the disparities between the best and worst performing areas narrow.

Others include bringing the rest of the country’s local public transport systems much closer to the standard of London’s, eliminating illiteracy and innumeracy in primary school leavers, halving the number of poor quality rental homes, decreasing serious crime in the most blighted areas and rejuvenating the most run-down town centres and communities.

Meanwhile every part of England getting a ‘London-style’ devolution deal if they wish to.

Mr Gove said: “Not everyone shares equally in the UK’s success. For decades, too many communities have been overlooked and undervalued. As some areas have flourished, others have been left in a cycle of decline. The UK has been like a jet firing on only one engine.

“Levelling up and this White Paper is about ending this historic injustice and calling time on the postcode lottery.

“This will not be an easy task, and it won’t happen overnight, but our 12 new national levelling up missions will drive real change in towns and cities across the UK, so that where you live will no longer determine how far you can go.”

Funding under the umbrella of levelling up has previously been announced for projects in Bognor Regis, Crawley, Eastbourne, Hastings, Hove, Littlehampton, Newhaven and Seaford.

The White Paper also highlights planned investment to the A27 at both Arundel and Lewes, improvements to the Brighton Main Line, an upgraded Gatwick Airport railway station, a new life sciences building at the University of Sussex, a new hospital for Eastbourne and a regional centre for teaching, trauma and tertiary care at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

New announcements included East Sussex being one of 55 education investment areas where school outcomes are ‘currently weakest’ and is line to benefit from intensive investment and support from the Department for Education.

Meanwhile Eastbourne and Brighton & Hove are two of 68 new areas which will be supported by the High Streets Task Force.

While Greater London and the areas around the capital are among the most prosperous parts of the country, the picture is more complex than a north-south divide.

Even in West Sussex there are deprived areas desperately in need of investment.

The county must not suffer at the expense of other areas.

The White Paper comes as our local authorities have been starved of funding since 2010, forcing them to make cuts and savings across the board, while since 2015 council tax bills have gone up year after year.

Meanwhile with many households already struggling financially, the country faces a cost of living crisis as inflation is increasing, energy bills are going up and a National Insurance rise is on the way.

County councillors respond

Kirsty Lord, Lib Dem opposition group leader at County Hall, said: “The people of West Sussex are facing a cost of living crisis and Tory tax hikes are just months away.

“Meanwhile West Sussex County Council is facing a shortfall of some £25m in 2023. Both the residents and the council needed to see detailed support being offered now.

“Instead we were given a White Paper containing information seemingly culled from Wikipedia and vague promises of improvement elsewhere by 2030.

“Our MPs – who include several ministers and the Prime Minister’s latest right hand man – now need to focus less on their ambitions in Westminster and more on the people who elected them.

“West Sussex residents need to see them standing up for this county and making the case for investment here not elsewhere.”

But Paul Marshall, leader of WSCC, welcomed the White Paper as it ‘provides a clearer framework of what levelling up means and along with the steps and opportunities’.

He added: “This is a positive step. As the Conservative leader I, along with colleagues, will be reviewing the White Paper, nearly 400 pages.

“I want to ensure that we take every opportunity to deliver the best outcomes for our residents and businesses in this county. I welcome the opportunity to explore those outcomes that comes with devolution.”

Caroline Baxter, leader of the Labour group, described how settlement funding for the county had been slashed even since 2018 dwarfing any successful bids to the towns fund and levelling up fund.

She said: “While West Sussex residents and our local economies brace themselves from the highest taxes and inflation levels seen in decades, this does little to reassure them that local authorities will be able to deliver services and protect our communities.”

She added: “West Sussex needs funding to improve and deliver struggling services for children and families, public health, accessible transport links, climate, and environmental changes and to protect and regenerate our culture, arts and communities.”

‘Bowl of thin gruel for Mid Sussex’

Jonathan Ash-Edwards, leader of the Conservatives at Mid Sussex District Council, said: “Levelling up is about making sure all parts of our country succeed so that no matter where you live you have access to the same opportunities. This is as important in Mid Sussex as anywhere else in the country.

“Locally, we are already working on boosting opportunities for local residents, such as seeking to bring high skill, high wage jobs into the district through a new science and technology park as well as investment in gigabit speed full fibre connectivity to encourage inward investment. I welcome the fact that the new Shared Prosperity Fund, which replaces the EU structural funds which Mid Sussex received little from, will be devolved to district councils to help us boost skills, support businesses and invest in our local communities.”

However the reaction from other political parties was far less upbeat.

Robert Eggleston, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat group at MSDC, said: “Everyone applauds the objective of ensuring that all the regions of the UK have the same opportunities and its residents there have equal access to quality services, well-paid jobs and decent social, health, transport and cultural infrastructure. The fact that it has taken the Tories decades to recognise this shows how out of touch they have been.

“Sadly though much of the White Paper rehashes existing policies and I doubt if there will be sufficient funds to make levelling up a reality. Fine words and aspirations are all very well but we do not grow rich on them.

“For Mid Sussex there is really very little to cheer about. The White Paper serves up a bowl of very thin gruel. Now you might say that, where there is a programme of levelling up, those areas perceived as better off will miss out.

“However, we cannot ignore that Mid Sussex has infrastructure challenges of its own which the levelling up White Paper ignores and, in some respects, actually makes worse. What is evident is that time and time again Mid Sussex has missed out on government funding to solve, for example, the failure to regenerate the town centre of Burgess Hill which needs a levelling up agenda all of its own.

“The change in the approach to the development of brownfield sites will see nearly all government funding for this shift to the Midlands and the North and the inevitable consequence for Mid Sussex is that the pressure for housing development will fall on the green fields in the south of the district even more.

“The hoped for rethink in planning policy sought by Mid Sussex Conservatives has come to nothing and the time for coming up with a coherent plan to manage growth, in way that meets our needs and respects community identity, is slipping away.

“The three crumbs of comfort in the White Paper are the UK Prosperity Fund, support for local community and cultural assets, and a desire by the government for communities to have a much greater say and control over their local priorities. We must ensure that Mid Sussex District Council uses any monies it receives from the UK Prosperity Fund in a transparent way and deals with structural deficiencies across the district.

“We must also ensure that it takes a district wide approach to the development of the area’s community and cultural assets. Finally, if the government wants to empower local communities then Mid Sussex District Council should immediately adopt this approach as well and listen to what we say are our local priorities and needs rather than assuming that it knows what is best for us.”

Anne Eves, from the district council’s Green group, said that while they were still digesting the lengthy White Paper they would welcome more devolution if properly funded and more integrated rural transport.

She added: “But the White Paper is so light on detail, and very light indeed on achieving net zero, which should be our priority.”

Pam Haigh, chair of Mid Sussex Constituency Labour Party, said: “The levelling up white paper is the latest in a series of missed opportunities from the Conservatives. After 12 years in office on their own or as partners with the Lib Dems, Mid Sussex has seen a real terms reduction of 45 per cent in the grants and funding streams available to councils outside of the Council Tax and Public Health grant.

“This has resulted in above-inflation increases in council tax, the closure of children’s and family centres, the loss of key cultural facilities such as the Martlets in Burgess Hill and Clair Hall in Haywards Heath , and the failure to regenerate town centres.

“Without further spending commitments, the 12 missions of the White Paper will stay as paper promises with nothing substantial achieved. £1.65 billion of funding from the EU’s Shared Prosperity Fund has been lost and nothing has been offered to replace it.

“Here in Mid Sussex, we do face deprivation: in meeting the urgent need for housing that is genuinely affordable rather than driving up house prices for everyone by overheating the buy to let market; in education, where a previous Labour government introduced the Sure Start scheme to link early education, childcare and healthcare to give children the best start in life; and where we now face shortages of schools, of teachers and even of basic equipment.

“Labour would make integrated regional planning a priority, spreading much-needed new development away from protected areas to places in need of regeneration. Infrastructure would be an absolute prerequisite to any new development, ensuring that neighbourhoods are created with schools, health and shopping facilities close at hand without adding to the carbon footprint by requiring car journeys for the basic needs of life.”

While the Conservatives voted to permanently close Clair Hall in 2020, this decision was later withdrawn after a successful legal challenge. The council consulted on the site’s future late last year and is now examining options for its future while the hall is currently being used by the NHS as a Covid vaccination centre.

‘Nature demoted’ says countryside charity

Professor Dan Osborn, chair of the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s Sussex branch, believes the levelling up blueprint announced by Michael Gove has a ‘gaping hole at its heart that means it won’t deliver what it could have’. And this omission might mean the initiative is ‘doomed to failure’.

He said: “All our health and wealth comes from the resources that are found in the natural world. These resources are scarce because they all come from just one planet, Earth.

“So why is this natural capital omitted from the foundation list of what needs to be accounted for when levelling up?

“If we continue to omit nature from the way we make plans and decisions, and just base those plans and decisions on the old-fashioned economics that have got us into the mess we are in at present – with climate change and water supplies etc – then we will continue to take bites out of nature and nature will bite back harder and harder. So, a levelling up course correction is needed, and fast.”

Professor Osborn points to a belated minor mention of natural capital late on in the White Paper, suggesting ‘demoting nature looks like a choice and not a mistake’.

He added: “This is no way to deal with climate change or water issues and no way to plan for the future.

“Natural capital and the services like food and water we get from ecosystems is supposed to be part of the thinking of all government departments. Why? Because it will help make more sustainable decisions as part of the government commitment to the 25-year Environment Plan.

“The trouble is that all too often old-style economic factors dominate. Social matters – like supplying truly affordable homes for local people – and environmental matters – such as ensuring there is enough water for nature, people, farming and business – often seem not to feature in decision-making at all. Nature’s capital must be just as much part of decisions as other kinds of capital drawn on to investment in the future.

“Does any of this matter to Sussex? Well yes it does, because the Government department that is setting the levelling up agenda is the same one that determines housing numbers, will have oversight of what seem like the increasingly odd plans to expand Gatwick and that has the last word on planning applications and how much money developers pay towards our social and environmental infrastructure such as schools and enhanced biodiversity.

“And all of this downgrading of the natural world comes at a time when the new Environment Bill’s provisions to protect and enhance the environment face delays in being enacted and when hard-pressed local authorities seem to have no resources to implement them.

“As Mr Gove said when he launched the 25 year Environment Plan: ‘So, protecting and enhancing the environment …. is about more than respecting nature. It is critical if the next generation is to flourish, with abundant natural resources to draw on, that we look after our and their inheritance wisely’.

“Maybe, that same Mr Gove can correct the serious omission of nature from the foundations of his levelling up plan that his current department have just issued? We cannot on any basis have our environment deteriorate any further.”

‘Our area needs investment’

Horsham MP Jeremy Quin, who represents Ardingly and Balcombe, said: “Our area needs investment - Bohunt School and two new primaries and upgrades to doctors’ surgeries are good starts but enhanced railway provision and new health facilities to meet the needs of the local population are a core focus.

“Levelling up will make the country as a whole work better. Investment in Crawley which has been hit especially hard by Covid, and the coast, helps Horsham.

“We want a country in which there are greater opportunities across the UK - an economy which reduces the magnetic pull of London which drives intense demand for services and more housing in our area through building a broader based national prosperity.”

Arundel and South Downs MP Andrew Griffith, who represents Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint, added: “The levelling up White Paper recognises that some parts of the United Kingdom do not share equally in our country’s success. Pockets of disadvantage may be found even in otherwise more prosperous communities. Rural poverty or some of our coastal communities for example.

“The Government has a clear strategy to tackle this, head on. Rural West Sussex, in my view, will certainly benefit from much of the investment that the Government is putting in place to ensure that everyone, everywhere, has an equal opportunity to flourish.

“Most tangibly, if levelling up can reverse the ‘southern tilt’ in our economy in the medium term, we may expect fewer homes to be required on green field land in West Sussex.

“Another way that our hamlets and villages scattered across the South Downs will feel the benefits of Levelling Up is through broadband improvements. Up to 68,000 rural homes and businesses across West Sussex will benefit from £112 million of investment which will secure lightning-fast gigabit-capable (that’s 1000mb/s) connections.

“Levelling up is also about to boosting funding for education, and commits to an extra £405m extra for mainstream schools in 2022/23. This is an increase of almost six per cent per pupil. This will provide extra support for students catch up from the pandemic and will help schools meet the mission of eliminating illiteracy and innumeracy.

“Further education provision in West Sussex will also benefit from Levelling Up. The already outstanding Chichester College Group, education teenagers and adults across the county, will become an Institute of Technology – gaining access to employer-led support which will ensure people from all backgrounds will have the opportunity to secure high-skilled and rewarding careers. This is in addition to the White Paper’s proposed investment of £3.8 billion to secure a Lifetime Skills Guarantee, meaning thousands of adults across West Sussex will have the opportunity to gain a new qualification for free.

“West Sussex is generally a very safe area to live, and we must be thankful for that. But occasionally, we need the support of our police. That is why I am pleased that 182 additional Police Officers have been recruited in Sussex as part of the Government’s plan to recruit 20,000 new police officers, whilst the county has benefitted from nearly £1 million of Safer Streets Funding focused on preventing neighbourhood crime.”