Government accused of 'neglecting coastal communities' in levelling up plan

The government has been accused of neglecting coastal communities in its new levelling up agenda.

Labour said the Conservatives have allowed "good jobs to flood out and not return" from areas that once "powered the country."

The government said the levelling up agenda is a "blueprint to transform communities" that will generate high-skilled jobs.

Analysis by the Labour party found that some areas of the UK would take hundreds of years to hit the UK average for high-tech jobs on their current trajectory.

The party said some areas in the south had more of the roles than anywhere else in Europe, while other parts of the UK lag behind countries such as Montenegro and Romania.

Areas around Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire have nearly one in eight jobs in high-tech sectors, whilst some areas of central London have nearly one in 10, the party’s research shows.

Labour said this compared to less than one in 50 in Lincolnshire and around one in 40 in South Yorkshire and the Tees Valley.

The party said it would take Tees Valley 120 years to reach the UK average for high-tech jobs of 5.1%, on its current trajectory.

It would take Lincolnshire almost 300 years at the current rate of growth, they said, while in Kent it would be the year 2166 before it was met.

Labour’s shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy said the Government was “lacking ambition for our places and our people” as she pointed to a regional divide in the provision of “jobs of the future”.

Ms Nandy said: “There are parts of the country where high-tech jobs are being realised through investment in renewables, which cuts energy bills, it gets money back into people’s pockets, it creates apprenticeships.

“But under the Conservatives the proud industrial and coastal communities which were, in living memory, the places which powered the country, have been utterly neglected, causing good jobs to flood out and not return.

Ms Nandy added the Government’s plan to level up the country was simply “tinkering with Whitehall structures and recycling old announcements”.

A Department of Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities spokesperson said: “Our landmark Levelling Up White Paper sets out a blueprint for how we will reverse this country’s geographical inequalities, spread opportunity and transform communities across the UK.

“It is underpinned by 12 ambitious, targeted, measurable and time-bound missions over 10 years, that will be tracked annually and on which the Government will be held to account.

“We will generate better-paid, higher-skilled jobs and transform the economies of the UK including the north of England through transformative investments in research and development.”