Think-tank: 'It's grim up North, so move'

It's grim up North and people in cities like Liverpool and Manchester should move to London and the South East, a radical report says.

The only answer to a decade of failure over regeneration in parts of the country is mass internal migration, the Policy Exchange think-tank believes.

It said all of the 3 million new homes planned by the Government should be shared equally between London, Oxford and Cambridge.

House-building restrictions in the South East should be lifted to lower house prices and stop people on low incomes being "trapped" in less prosperous parts of the country, the authors said.

And cash being pumped into renewal projects and back-to-work schemes should instead be given directly to councils according to local wage levels to spend on regeneration.

The authors said coastal cities like Liverpool and Sunderland had "little prospect of offering their residents the standard of living to which they aspire" after the decline of industries such as shipping.

The report concluded: "No one is suggesting that residents should be forced to move, but we do argue that they should be told the reality of the position: regeneration, in the sense of convergence, will not happen, because it is not possible."

The authors included Tim Leunig, a lecturer in economic history at the London School of Economics, who said: "No doubt some people will claim that these proposals are unworkable, unreasonable and perhaps plain barmy.

"But the issue is clear: current regeneration policies are failing the very people they are supposed to be helping and there is no evidence that the trend will be reversed without radical changes. Internal migration has always been an important part of a dynamic economy."

But both the Government and the Conservatives distanced themselves from the study's findings.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "We totally disagree with the conclusions of this report.

"No Government has done more to turn around decades of neglect, and since 1997 cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle have benefited from thousands of new jobs, lower crime rates and better living standards thanks to our sustained commitment to regeneration, and investment in public services.

Tory leader David Cameron said: "This report has got nothing to do with the Conservative Party - this is an independent think-tank, it has charitable status.

"I think this report is complete rubbish. It is barmy."

"It has produced some good work in the past, but this is a very bad report. Sometimes they come up with good ideas and sometimes they come up with bad ideas. This is a bad one.

"I think there is a resurgence going on in Britain's northern cities."

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.