Patchy recovery predicted across Britain’s cities
By politics.co.uk staff
Britain’s most vulnerable cities will need help from the government to properly recover from recession, a thinktank has warned.
The Centre for Cities’ annual index revealed Sunderland, Liverpool, Birkenhead, Swansea and Newport were among those most unlikely to feel the benefits of recovery.
A reliance on public sector jobs, lower levels of business activity and skills and a greater than average vulnerability to spending cuts makes the outlook especially bleak for them.
“During 2011, the UK cities most dependent on the public sector, and which have seen slower economic growth over the last decade, will find it more difficult to rebalance towards the private sector,” Centre for Cities chief executive Alexandra Jones said.
“These cities will need realistic plans of action to ride out the spending cuts and create jobs – but they will also need additional financial support from central government.”
The report has exposed regional differences, with seven out of the ten cities facing the biggest welfare spending cuts by 2014/15 coming from the north-west.
Fast-growing cities like Leeds and Bristol, featuring strong private sector growth, are set to lead the UK’s recovery, Ms Jones added.
“It’s time these places had new financial freedoms such as full control over the local business rate, and new powers to raise money,” she suggested.
“They could also benefit from having London-style mayors.”
Other vulnerable cities include Birkenhead, Rochdale, Blackburn and Barnsley. The cities least affected by welfare cuts include Gloucester, Reading, Cambridge and York.
