Recently in Infrastructure Category

George Osborne opened up his piggy bank this lunchtime. Heaving the national level stuff to one side here's what Osborne's budget will mean for the regions:

Allan Thomson, Station Capacity Manager, TfL London Underground

The top of Centrepoint was an appropriate spot to launch research into the impact Crossrail and the Thameslink upgrade will have on rents and property values. Not only do you get incredible views across London but you can also look down on the site of the new Tottenham Court Road crossrail station (click on image for larger version).

What Lambert Smith Hampton has done, in a nutshell, is calculate the short term and longer term impact of values and rents around 15 key stations along the Crossrail and Thameslink routes. In Saturday's EG we'll be publishing a map with LSH's key stats for the 15 stations which you can have a sneak peek at here but just whizzing through the full report it easy to spot that some hot spots are hotter than others.

At the western end of Crossrail the Slough/Heathrow area is expected to see the biggest gains with prime rental growth in the next two years predicted to be 7.5% per annum while in the east, Canary Wharf will see a rise of 8% pa.

For Thameslink it is Kings Cross/Euston and Blackfriar's which are the hottest spots. The former with an 11% pa increase on prime rents and the latter 11.5% pa together with a yield compression of 75bp between 2011 and 2013.

If there was any drinking to be done last night, post Chancellor George Osborne's Comprehensive Spending Review announcement it was probably more a case of drowning sorrows rather than celebrating.

Leeds City Council was very quick to issue a press release yesterday afternoon announcing that it will be making spending cuts of £150m by 2015 - some £50m next year alone.

But how about other parts of the country, what has the reaction been?

South West

• SWRDA's chief economist Nigel Jump is reported on southwestbusiness.co.uk as saying that the region has lost out to the north when it comes to infrastructure spending and the announcement yesterday confirms fears that 120,000 jobs could go from the region

• The South West Business insider also picks up on infrastructure and how hopes of having an electrified line between London and the region have been dashed while support for green technologies is broadly welcomed

East of England

• Cambridge News has an opinion piece from Steve Sharratt, chairman of the Space for Ideas Business Forum in which he highlights the pro's and con's for the region emphasising the need for Central Government to give sustained support in order to create new jobs.

Midlands

• Our Midlands editor Lisa Pilkington has been gauging opinion from the region over on her blog
  

Yorkshire

• The Yorkshire Post analyses the impact of raising the pension age and fears for public sector jobs in the area but also lists where investment will be made.
• In South Yorkshire, The Star leads on the potential for thousands of job losses in the area noting that Sheffield council will announce how many town hall jobs will go in December.

North West

• The Manchester Evening News reports that Manchester-based economists have warned that George Osborne's sweeping cuts will force the economy into a 'double-dip' recession.
  

• Manchester-based blog Inside the M60 refers to think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research, which says that the severity and speed of the cuts could threaten the recovery in the north of England and widen the north-south divide.
  

• Amid similar fears expressed in Merseyside, the Liverpool Echo highlights the fact that a continued government commitment to major infrastructure work in the region has been welcomed by business leaders.
  

• The Lancashire Evening Post reports fears that hundreds of workers at BAE Systems' Lancashire-based defence factory could be lost as a result of the cuts.
  

North East

• The Newcastle Journal reports that Newcastle council is preparing to consult members of the public as to where the axe should fall as it prepares to make huge cuts.
  

Lot to digest in Chancellor George Osborne's spending review today, with details to emerge over the coming weeks. But here are some initial thoughts and comments from around the country and it's not all bad news:

- Local authority budgets to be cut by 7.1% per year for four years but local authorities will have more control throwing the spotlight on TIF's and LEP's. No doubt the fall-out from this will emerge over the coming months although some councils have already announced budget cuts.

- 150,000 affordable homes to be built in next four years - got to be good news for house builders across the country and those with planning permission for schemes which include social housing.

- Government is planning to raise billions for a green bank to invest in off shore wind farms, carbon capture and other green technologies which could be good news for those parts of the country which have been making noises about creating green technology clusters. Yorkshire Insider is one local news source that has picked up on the potential opportunities.

- Permanent tax levy on banks - details to be announced tomorrow - aimed at raising maximum from banks without risking the UK losing it's competitive edge on the world financial stage. Depending on detail it is unlikely to spark any rapid growth in the banking sector which has historically taken good chunks of office space in the City and Edinburgh.

Transport £30bn invested over next four years including:

The North West is "leading the UK out of recession," and "intervention at a regional level has protected the region from the ravages of recession." That was the bullish claim of one speaker at this morning's Smith Institute seminar at the House of Lords this morning I went to this morning.

The institute used the seminar, which featured among others North West minister Phil Woolas, to unveil its latest publication,The Future of the North West.pdf

The report states that the North WEst now has a £120bn economy and urges that the region be granted greater economic powers in order that its economic priorities be met.

The Chatham House rule prevents me from dishing the dirt on who exactly said what, but the flavour was a generally positive - vehemently at times - overview of how the North West is faring this downturn.

I've never been to a Smith instute seminar before, so I wasn't quite expecting the frank and even slightly angry responses today from the audience at the House of Commons.

Gordon Brown's think tank held an event at what was otherwise an eerily subdued Parliament today to mark the publication of its the future of Yorkshire and Humber report.   

While the mainstay of media and politicians stayed away from Parliament ahead of state opening and the Queens speech tomorrow, committee room 15 was packed out with heads of local government and high ranking Yorkshire business men.

The audience listened politely while the speakers gave their opening speeches. The chair then threw the discussion out to the floor reminding everyone that it was Chatham House rules and all should feel able to talk freely.

He needn't have bothered. A barrage of criticism followed over local government's failure to secure the high speed rail link, which will now bypass Yorkshire completely on its route between London and Scotland. This quickly spilled over into Yorkshire's inability to put it's case forward to central government and its willingness to just accept defeat.

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It takes just 14 minutes to get from St Pancras station in Central London to Ebbsfleet in North Kent using Southeastern trains new high speed rail link. It's not a particularly pretty journey as most of it passes through tunnels but it is certainly fast.

The journey time will go up by three minutes when the trains start stopping at Stratford but I was curious to know if the economic benefits to Kent would extend beyond attracting London commuters to attracting new businesses.

During the journey this morning, I spoke to deputy leader of Kent County Council, Alex King, Mandy Bearne, director of marketing and research for Locate in Kent and industrial and logistics partner at Knight Frank Paul Mussi and asked them if investment would be speeding into the county.