East Midlands Chamber has accused the government of a chronic public underinvestment in the region’s infrastructure.
It said Treasury figures showed the East Midlands got less than two-thirds of the UK Government average for areas such as transport, water, flood resilience, energy, waste and digital – the lowest of all the UK regions.
Despite the Government’s Levelling Up promises, the region has missed out on major investment in projects such as electrification of the Midlands Mainline, and the Eastern leg of HS2 – which looks like it will now end at Parkway Station near East Midlands Airport.
The chamber said the lack of investment was having a negative impact on regional economic growth, productivity and social mobility, and could hold back the region’s transition to net zero.
Chamber director of policy and insight Chris Hobson said: “For years, the East Midlands has been bottom of the pile when it comes to public investment and it’s held back our potential.
“Time and again, we find ourselves at the back of the queue when it comes to building major infrastructure, with promises not kept over the electrification of the Midland Main Line and the HS2 Eastern Leg significantly scaled back despite full delivery happening elsewhere in the country – which could leave us structurally disadvantaged as a result.
“In the chamber’s regional economic blueprint, A Centre of Trading Excellence: A Business Manifesto for Growth in the East Midlands and Beyond, we earmark infrastructure as one of the ‘four Is’ – along with investment, innovation and international trade – that Westminster must prioritise in order to achieve sustained economic growth.”
The East Midlands All-Party Parliamentary Group –where MPs and peers work together to identify priorities for development and future investment – is working with the chamber, East Midlands Councils and law firm Geldards to gather intelligence from businesses across Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire on the issue.
It wants to understand the extent to which national infrastructure investment underpins local investment by businesses and councils for the benefit of the people that live here and businesses based here.
The analysis will be used by MPs to engage with Government and the National Infrastructure Commission – which will publish its second National Infrastructure Assessment this autumn to set out the UK’s long-term economic infrastructure needs – to address the region’s infrastructure deficit.
Mr Hobson said: “This inquiry is the next step in this strand of work and we want to hear the views of businesses so we can really understand exactly what infrastructure enables in our communities.”
The Chamber has designed a short survey for businesses to complete by Friday, June 9 at bit.ly/EMinfrastructure.
