A tale of four manifestos, three issues, and Britain’s cities

The manifestos from four of the main political parties ahead of the British general election are out and – no surprise – they are pretty silent on cities and urban affairs. Given the media focus on the NHS and social care, the cost of living crisis and immigration, issues relating to Britain’s towns and cities and urban development generally take a back seat in the election manifestos.

A crude calculation shows Labour’s 136-page manifesto mentions cities four times and urban twice. The Tories weigh in at 80 pages with five and six, respectively. The Lib Dems mention cities four times but does not use the word “urban” in their 117-page offer. But the winner in both absolute and relative terms (its manifesto is just 28 pages) is the Green Party tagging cities four times and urban five.

But of course, there are many areas of policy that will affect how towns and cities develop. While housing and planning is an obvious one, proposals for reforming public and private transport and strategic visions for how the UK economy will grow are highly relevant.

Home straight

Labour has managed to grab some headlines with its pledge to build 1.5 million new homes over the next Parliament, a rate of between 300,000 and 375,000 a year dependent on its length. To achieve this high ambition — there was a 9 per cent fall last year to 231,100 — the party will restore mandatory housing targets, ensure councils have up-to-date Local Plans and take a “strategic approach” to designating greenbelt land for housing.

The Conservatives have trumped this with a pledge to build 1.6 million homes (or 320,000-400,000 a year) through eight initiatives including abolishing EU nutrient neutrality rules which aim to prevent nutrient pollution from new housebuilding projects, raising density levels and requiring councils to set aside land for smaller builders. They also pledge to invest £4.7 billion — from the shelved HS2 project — for smaller cities, towns and rural areas in the North and Midlands to spend on their transport priorities. The Liberal Democrats have pledged to build a higher number of new homes, 380,000 per year, and said that 150,000 of these should be made available for social rent (1.9 million and 750,000 over a five-year parliament, respectively).

All well and good but the issue is how to get there in the face of likely opposition from people not wanting housing in their backyard. Leaving aside the Green and Lib Dems, the two main parties talk about reforming the planning system — for Labour it is “updating the national planning policies” and for the Tories it is “speeding up” and “streamlining” — but there is little sign of the more strategic overhaul that is urgently needed.

Labour does talk about creating new versions of the post-war towns, which if they are sited in rural or post-industrial areas might involve the suspension of normal planning rules as happen to London’s Docklands 40 years ago. Labour is also talking about “fair” compensation for landowners rather than inflated prices based on the prospect of planning permission. A more ambitious programme would be to replace permissions with zones that the Centre for Cities says could address the backlog of 4.3 million homes needed to meet current and future demands.

Transport of delight…or delay

The rows over Ulez in London and rising fuels costs have made cars a political hot potato. Although they only get a couple of paragraphs in each manifesto, Labour and Conservatives are quite divergent. The Tories will block any road pricing schemes and prevent councils from imposing them while enabling the removal of low traffic neighbourhoods and 20mph zones. Labour seems to have bent to the motorists’ rhetoric, saying that cars are the “most popular” form of transport (albeit not in cities) and focuses on filling in potholes and reducing motor insurance costs.

What will be needed after the election, especially if Labour win power with its net zero 2030 agenda, is how to find ways to reduce car use by making public transport more attractive and integrating it into people’s daily lives so they actively chose public transport.

In most towns and cities that means the bus, which Greater Manchester has recognised with its strategy to use devolved powers to bring its network back under council control as the Bee Network. There should be a post-election review of the franchising system to give mayors greater ability to set the rules of the game for the private operators, as London has done for decades. Allied to that should be a proper examination of road pricing that make the cost of driving more immediate and obvious and enable drivers to see the benefits of adopting public transport as part of a wider modal shift.

It's the economy, stupid

Economic management is primarily a national issue, of course, but policies aimed at stimulating growth will have impacts on the centres of population. All parties now talk about industrial strategy, which is clearly a global theme as evidenced by Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction and CHIPS Acts.

Labour has the strongest rhetoric and largest figures: a £7.3 billion National Wealth Fund to support its growth and clean energy missions and £2.5 billion to rebuild the steel industry. The Conservatives mention small modular reactors, a green industries accelerator, and investing in offshore wind in the “most disadvantaged” communities.

That may not impact cities or large towns directly (other than Port Talbot) as manufacturing tends to take places on its edges or in isolated locations (although the innovation and thinking behind it tends to happen in cities). In terms of fostering activity tackling the issues mentioned above such as transport integration and improved planning would help.

But at the Centre for Cities (again) has identified, a major weakness is the low level of productivity in non-metropolitan cities. Its recent report identified a “prosperity gap” that left the UK economy 8.8 per cent smaller than it would be if cities such as Birmingham and Manchester performed as well as equivalent places such as Lyon and Frankfurt. It called for a CHIPS Act-style funding and reform package. And given that four-fifths of the UK economy — and probably more for urban areas — is made up of services, that’s where future policy should focus.

Manifestos are like newspapers, here today and fish and chip wrapping or door wedges tomorrow. The hope is that once a new government is installed on 5 July, it will bin the rhetoric and make progress on some of those key issues of transport, housing and economic growth that are so important to cities and enable them to contribute to turning around the recent national underperformance.