Yesterday the Government published its “Planning for sustainable growth in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc An introduction to the Oxford-Cambridge Arc Spatial Framework”. Trips off the tongue, dunt it.
I sat through an hour-long webinar ‘launch’ of said document today, hosted by property consultants Bidwells, who are making and will make a mint out of downing trees, digging up pasture and throwing concrete around like confetti, which is what the ARC is all about. They say not. They say it’s about beautiful, sustainable development in the “knowledge-based” economy that will make the ARC a great place to live. The fact that it’s already a great place to live because it’s green and rural and tranquil in many places seems to have escaped their notice.
Bidwells was joined by, oh I dunno, a career civil servant, a woman who shouted a lot but said very little, a Canadian who had the effrontery to tell we Brits what’s best for us, and another Uriah Heep of a guy. Maybe someone else as well. They were all saying, or shouting, the same thing so what did it matter who they were. Apart from the Colonial, they were all southern English and self-righteous and back-slapping and myopic and deluded and delusional.
As my mate put it so eloquently, “You can't have a serious discussion with people who can't hear you because they have their heads so far up each other's arses.”
And when he asked a question, which was economically sound and socially aware, he got shouted at (guess who). He was lucky. At least they published one of his questions and answered it (albeit not well). I asked two questions and was ignored. They only showed the questions they answered. All the others were asked in secret. None of the audience knew who else was in the audience or what questions were being asked or concerns were being raised. How is that open and transparent?
Which is strange because, we are told, they want to do things differently this time. They say they want to listen to everyone, make it a real consultation-fest, bring everyone along with them.
Liar Liar Pants On Fire. They’re just saying that because it’s what they think people want to hear. Yes I know I’m cynical, but I have good reason. This “We want to do things differently / We want a consultation revolution” is in response to the PR battle they were losing over the five new cities, then the Ox-Cam Expressway, then the 1m – 1.5m new homes, then the Green Arc. (Since when did grey become green?) They’re now pretending that they’re starting from scratch and consulting from the bottom up. However, the public consultation starts this spring and the ‘Vision’ will be published in the summer. Really? How can you consult with all stakeholders and the public in five counties, analyse the input and produce a vision in the space of three months? You do the maths.
So having established that the consultation exercise will be no more meaningful than it was for HS2 or Heathrow3, let’s look at the rest of the we’re-going-to-do-things-differently-this-time claim. Deep breath…
…. One of the richest and most successful parts of the country is going to gobble up wads of public and private investment to make it even richer and more successful and this will help the rest of the country too. Errrr. Hasn’t this been tried before? Yes. Repeatedly. Ad infinitum. And failed. Most investment goes to London and the Southeast because it delivers a larger return on investment as measured by GDP, but only in London and the Southeast. It is now acknowledged without doubt that this practise has exacerbated the north-south divide over the years. Indeed, not only the north-south divide but, as the loud lady shouted at us this morning, there are plenty of left-behinds in the richest part of the country. Still? After all the investment and development in the richest part of the country?
Which actually proves my point that throwing good money after good will end up as it always does, with the richest getting richer, and the poorest getting crumbs. In economic parlance, continuing to invest in the wealthiest areas – whether it’s green-washed or not, democratic or not, in manufacturing, service industries or “knowledge-based” – will see that wealth distributed inefficiently and ineffectually.
The best way to get wealth into an area, whether it’s a poor postcode in a big city, or an actual big city, or a red-wall region like West Cumbria, is to invest directly in that area and improve links to other areas. Investing in Peterborough will do diddly squat for Preston.
But Bidwells don’t care. Career civil servants don’t care. The Canadian doesn’t care. The shouty lady doesn’t care. Between them they want to tick boxes, make money, collect OBEs and expand their local fiefdoms. Leopards don’t change their spots, only the timbre of their snarl.
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