The night tube is a welcome upgrade, but where is the transport investment in the north?

The Central and Victoria line will begin an all-night service in August 2016

Night Tube Map (TfL)

Like many a Tube train, it is late arriving, but the announcement that the night service on the London Underground is to begin this August is, naturally, very welcome. It helps secure London’s reputation as a 24-hour world city, and will play its part in maintaining the capital’s vibrant economic growth rate.

However, it is difficult to look upon the vast investment that is being made in the transport infrastructure of Greater London and its commuter belt without a twinge of worry about the rest of the country. Of course the south-eastern quadrant of the UK is not surprisingly congested, and the attempt to squeeze too many people, too much travel, and too much economic activity into such a modest and often unplanned space cannot be made without a radical restructuring of transportation.

Thus we have the night tube, Crossrail, the expansion at other Stansted or Heathrow, and various other projects. And yet there is no certainty that any of these upgrades will be able to keep pace with demand, and we seem to be set on a perpetual leapfrogging game in which demand always rises to fill the newly created I capacity. That, after all, is the lesson of every major motorway and road improvement project in recent years.

The solution has already been arrived at by the Government; new regional “powerhouses” that may yet mimic London and the south east’s success. The only thing that is missing is funding. It has to be said, with no great chippiness on the part of the midlands, North and the rest of the country, every pound ploughed into trying to keep London from grinding to halt is a pound that could have been spent on utilising the vast spare capacity north of Watford and west of Reading. Where is the transport and other infrastructure investment in Newcastle? In Liverpool? In Stoke?

Britain has long had a problem with an unbalanced economy; the billions being poured into the south east are not an immediately obvious way of building the economic One Nation ministers so like to talk about.