Britain | Regional development

The Tories seem to be cooling on Boris Johnson’s signature policy

Farewell, levelling up?

A pedestrian walks along a street in a residential area in the town of Blyth in northeast England on December 13, 2019 the day after the former mining town voted in a Conservative MP for the first time in its history contributing to the Tory party's landslide victory. - UK Prime Minister and Conservative leader Boris Johnson proclaimed a political "earthquake" Friday after his thumping election victory cleared Britain's way to finally leave the European Union after years of damaging deadlock over Brexit. To secure the landslide victory the Conservative Party took a swath of seats from the Labour Party's traditional heartlands in the north and the midlands bringing about Labour's worst election defeat since 1935. One of the first results emphasised Labour's woes, with the former safe seat of Blyth Valley in a one-time mining area in northeastern England voting Tory for the first time in its history. (Photo by Lindsey Parnaby / AFP) (Photo by LINDSEY PARNABY/AFP via Getty Images)
|EDLINGTON

Few places need levelling up more than the Royal housing estate in Edlington, a town in South Yorkshire once dominated by coal mining. Houses have been abandoned and boarded up; local children terrorise some of the remaining residents. The local Conservative mp, Nick Fletcher, has a plan for the estate. He wants to lock up criminals, hold community meetings, tidy people’s front gardens and use government funds to spruce up the high street. But his party seems to be losing interest.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “What was that, again?”

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