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It is reported that Churchill said the following words after the Second World War: “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
Assuming that he did indeed say this, even he could not quite have envisaged how “slow and laborious” it would be to build infrastructure in modern Britain.
Coming up in this week’s newsletter
- Why Stockport, Birmingham and Leeds are having to wait so long for new trams.
- What Housing Secretary Angela Rayner told me at a breakfast event last week…
- Plus why you should read between the lines of Peter Fonagy’s report about young people’s mental health and what Andy Burnham has since said about reforms to the welfare state young people can access.
As I wrote in last week’s The State We’re In, Britain could change fiscal debt rules to exempt public bodies and speed up investment in new housing and transport networks.
Even if, and it is a big if, John Healey opted to do something so bold in next week’s Budget, current waiting times for new infrastructure to be completed suggest that only half of the battle would have been won.
Today the independent urban policy research think-tank, Centre for Cities, has published a report which warns that Britain is lagging behind its G7 peers when it comes to delivering new transport links.
They note that France has added 260 miles of new tram and light railways since 2010. That’s more than the entire length of England’s existing tram networks, which, all told, is around 220 miles.
Of course, Britain’s planning system (which Labour have recently passed major reforms to) is partly to blame for this. Did someone say “bat tunnel“? But there’s more to it than that.
Consider Stockport. I was there recently and toured the town’s regeneration with the council’s leader and representatives from the Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC), which has co-ordinated the development.
Walking down from the mainline train station to Stockport Interchange, however, it was obvious that not all organisations have moved as quickly as Stockport’s MDC.
Stockport Interchange, which opened in 2024 at a cost of £135m, was designed to be Metrolink-ready and accommodate future tram service which would see the area’s metro extended from East Didsbury in south Manchester to Stockport.
However, it has not yet happened. Even though former chancellor Rachel Reeves made a commitment to pay for it in 2025.
Just two weeks after becoming Prime Minister, Burnham moved to make it easier for mayors and local leaders to get new transport schemes over the line, with the threshold at which mayors needed direct approval from Whitehall to bring forward new transport schemes set to be lifted from £200m to £500m.
Councillor Mark Roberts, Leader of the Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, told me that Stockport is “already showing what devolution can achieve when local leaders have the powers, partnerships and ambition to deliver”.
Roberts said that “the investment coming into” the borough and the changes to the town centre were proof of that.
He added that “Metrolink is the missing link” to Stockport’s regeneration and development.
“We’re excited about the commitment to bring it to Stockport. That connectivity would bring homes, jobs and opportunities within easier reach for more people, strengthen productivity and connect communities across Greater Manchester’s southern gateway,” Roberts added. “Delivering Metrolink will unlock the next chapter of Stockport’s growth and ensure the benefits are felt right across our borough.”
Burnham’s successor as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Bev Craig, has said the delays in Stockport are because the scheme is “complicated”.
This is a familiar refrain heard all over Britain.
The Centre for Cities report also singles out the West Midlands Metro. Line 1 is up and running between Birmingham and Wolverhampton via West Bromwich and Wednesbury.
However, it was originally proposed as a three-line network back in 2013. Over a decade ago. Lines 2 and 3 would have extended to Merry Hill shopping centre, Walsall and Birmingham airport.
Later this year, part of what was supposed to be “Line 3” (Wednesbury to Dudley) is slated to open this year, followed by another section to Brierley Hill in 2028. However, both are substantially delayed.
In June, Dudley council leader Patrick Harley said “heads need to roll” after he learned of the delays.
As for Leeds, the patch where Reeves herself, the chancellor who pledged to support “the builders, not the blockers”, is an MP, “slow and laborious” would be a generous way to describe progress on a new transport network.
Indulge me by scrolling back to 1959, when Leeds’ original tramways closed. In 1993, the Leeds Supertram Act was passed. Several design bids for the tram system then failed to get government backing, leading to it being cancelled. In the 2010s, Leeds asked for the government to support the city in getting a trolleybus (this is a cross between a tram and a bus).
Last year, led by West Yorkshire’s Labour Mayor Tracy Brabin, Leeds and Bradford launched a new £2.5bn mass transit bid for a tram. In June 2025, Reeves secured £2.1bn in funding for Phase 1, planning two lines (a Leeds line and a Leeds-to-Bradford line).
However, extensive business-case reviews have pushed the probably delivery of this new tram to the late 2030s.
Getting new roads over the line isn’t necessarily any easier. The Centre for Cities has reported that upgrade works to the A19 in North Tyneside – a planning condition for new homes on the route – and works to ease congestion at the Tees Crossing are unlikely to happen until 2031 and 2038 respectively, despite being clear priorities for the region’s growth.
I’ve spoken to mayors across the country, including Kim McGuinness in the North East, who hope that Burnham’s pledge to further devolve Britain will finally give them the power to get new transport links built without having to beg central government for money and permission.
“Too many investment decisions simply haven’t come North, and we’ve had to really fight for investment – such as in Northern Powerhouse Rail,” she said.
“There are so many examples – from skills and education to transport and housing – where we are so much better equipped to channel money straight into communities without having to keep going to Westminster begging bowl in hand to ask for a new grant.”
Centre for Cities argues that mayors should have more ways to borrow against locally retained taxes and unlock infrastructure finance as part of Burnham’s fiscal devolution plans.
That certainly sounds like the plan and direction of travel based on what both Rayner and Burnham are saying.
The extension of Greater Manchester’s Metrolink to Stockport in Burnham’s former stomping ground and the Tyne and Wear Metro extension to Washington in McGuinness’s patch will make excellent test cases of Labour’s great theory of a devolution revolution.
Do you live in an area with awful transport links? I’d love to hear from you vicky.spratt@theipaper.com
Housing crisis watch
Last week, the homelessness charity Crisis published a report which, frankly, should worry us all. With the number of people sleeping rough and the number of homeless children growing up in temporary accommodation at increasing levels, English councils are now spending billions of pounds a year on the direct costs of homelessness. It is, as Crisis point out, a false economy.
I chaired the report launch at which I interviewed the Rayner, the Secretary of State for Housing. I asked her whether we might expect an uplift to the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) – which is how housing benefit is calculated – in next week’s Budget. An uplift would insulate lower-income private renters from rent increases and help to prevent homelessness.
Rayner did not rule it out and said there are “live conversations” about this issue with Healey. However, she made it clear that increasing LHA indefinitely was neither a “silver bullet” nor a “sustainable strategy” and said her focus is on bringing forward as many social and council homes as she can build. Rayner is, of course, right that this is the best long-term solution to the problem.
Will the Chancellor release more money for the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP), then? I guess we shall have to wait and see.
Vicky’s pick
- I was away in Spain over the weekend and made a deliberate attempt to look at as few screens as possible. However, I did manage to read this article in The Economist about how millennials may yet be the richest generation in quite some time. I’d like to add a few caveats because people keep sending it to me…firstly, this article mostly talks about the USA, where millennials’ wages have been going up, and graduates’ roles have continued to be created, and it makes rather a few assumptions about inheritance. As I am forever pointing out…not every millennial is going to inherit property wealth! And, even if they do, they face some of the highest housing costs of their own in…history! All is not as it seems, even if younger people are now earning and inheriting more on paper.
In response to my last newsletter on the affordable homes programme, Roger emailed in to highlight his concerns around the environmental impact of housebuilding, which he feels is missing from the reporting on this topic.
“The impact on public health is more elusive and serious with not a shred of recognition on how current and longer term generations living close to highly polluting motorways will be affected,” he adds.
Roger makes an interesting point but, as I’ve reported, the truth is that not all green belt land is the high quality natural paradise we often of think of it as being.
Some of it is low quality land which could be better used. And, while we do need to take the environment seriously, and care for it, brownfield sites can be complicated to develop even though it’s right to prioritise them for the development where possible.
Thanks for emailing in – I appreciate reader thoughts on the topics I cover, so do get in touch by hitting reply.
Do you have a comment? An idea for something you’d like me to investigate? Let me know.