Levelling Up UK regions: scale-related challenges of Brexit, investment and land use

This paper discusses three of the key reasons why productivity growth in the UK is both so weak and also so regionally unbalanced. These reasons are Brexit, low levels of public and private investment, and the operation of the land-use planning system. In each case the national implications of these issues also have direct regional corollaries and causal mechanisms, which unless comprehensively addressed, heavily constrain the ability of Levelling Up to work. A reconsideration of the nature and scale of these issues also highlights the limited nature and scale of the current institutional and policy responses aimed at rebalancing UK productivity and prosperity.