NORTHERN towns like Bolton and Oldham are beyond revival and residents should be encouraged to move to new 'supercities' in the south, a think-tank claimed today.

Policy Exchange said 'hard-headed analysis' showed regeneration was 'impossible' in places that now found themselves in 'the wrong place at the wrong time'.

It said mass migration to areas around London and a massively expanded Oxford and Cambridge was the only answer to decades of failure.

The conclusions were immediately rejected by both the government and the Conservatives - to whom Policy Exchange have been closely linked.

The report said Manchester - while doing relatively well - lacked the economic clout to lift former mill towns like Oldham, Bolton and Rochdale. Even Liverpool, it said, was suffering 'in the shadow' of its great north western rival and could not realistically hope for revival.

The 'brutal' truth for people in such areas, it concluded, was that staying put would mean higher chances of unemployment and the prospect of relatively low wages.

"The North-South divide is not a transient problem that reflects a short-lived hiatus as manufacturing declines and service sector economies take its place," said the authors. "Nor does it reflect a failure of government policy to do what is needed.

"Rather, it is evidence that the North, the powerhouse of the industrial revolution, is now a less desirable location for business for reasons that are geographical and entirely outside its control or that of central and local government.

"Liverpool was once a booming city made rich on the cotton trade. The same was true for place like Oldham and Bolton, the cotton capitals of the world. They rivalled London, the financial capital of the world. But although London remains one of the great financial centres, Liverpool, Oldham and Bolton are not booming, because the cotton industry proved to have no future in Britain. It is no fault of Lancashire that cotton proved to be a less secure basis for long-term prosperity than finance.

"Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle all have decided strengths, but they are not successful enough to deliver prosperity to neighbouring towns, such as Rochdale, Bradford and Sunderland, in the way that London is able to support relatively poor communities in North Kent and South Essex."

The report said rules should be relaxed so that people in Wigan and Warrington could be put on the list for social housing in Wandsworth and Woking.

And it claimed every one of the three million new homes planned by the government should be shared between the capital and Oxford and Cambridge - which could then expand as quickly as Manchester during the industrial revolution.

The report said the case for expanding Manchester was `dramatically weakened' by the low land prices in nearby towns like Rochdale.

"It is hard to see the wider Manchester area as short of housing," said the report. "It would be odd to expand the city dramatically when there is so little demand for housing in nearby towns."

The report will come as an embarrassment to David Cameron, the Tory leader, as he is about to embark on a tour of the north. Policy Exchange has been called the `Tories' favourite think tank', and seats in places like Warrington and Bolton are likely to prove crucial to the Conservatives' general election chances.

Tory frontbencher Chris Grayling said: "This independent report does not reflect Conservative party policy and we do not agree with its conclusions. We wholeheartedly support the regeneration of northern cities."

A spokesperson for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "We totally disagree with the conclusions of this report. It's alarming that this `think tank' is labelling our great cities as `beyond revival' and arguing that we should target less effort on them, when those areas that have received regeneration funding have shown the greatest improvements."
Tweet