‘The policymakers that live in London and stuff, they don’t really care about a small town like Rochdale. I just feel as though, for many years it’s been one of those forgotten things, we live under the shadow of Manchester.’
This quote, from a teaching assistant in his 30s with young children, is from a recent focus group we ran in Rochdale. But in truth it could easily be from any focus group in any town across provincial Britain over the past ten years, such is the national feeling of malaise.
The government is right to revive levelling up. Why it ever went away is baffling
People in these communities have long felt that their towns, high streets and public spaces are in decline. They have aired their frustrations loudly in that time. These were the areas that overwhelmingly voted to leave in the EU referendum; backed Boris Johnson’s Tories in 2019; and after ‘levelling up’ failed to materialise, unenthusiastically backed Keir Starmer’s promise of change in 2024.
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