Readers respond to last week’s ‘levelling up’ speech by the prime minister
Critics of the prime minister’s “levelling up” speech have missed one very positive element (Boris Johnson’s speech on ‘levelling up’ decried for lack of substance, 15 July). Mr Johnson admitted that “investing in areas where house prices are already sky high and where transport is already congested and by turbo-charging those areas, especially in London and the south-east” would drive prices higher and force people to move to already overheated areas.
These words effectively torpedoed the government’s ludicrous and destructive Oxford-Cambridge Arc project. The five overwhelmingly rural counties under threat mostly enjoy above-average prosperity and productivity, and have no need of the million homes the government wants to dump on productive farmland there. The vast public investment proposed should be reallocated to places that would actually benefit.
Jon Reeds
Smart Growth UK
