The survey of 225 firms was conducted by Make UK, which said regional mayors should be given more power and responsibility for levelling up funds to rebalance UK economy.
The theme of ‘levelling up’ was used as a key pledge in the Conservative Party’s 2019 election manifesto. In it, the Conservative Party pledged to “to use our post-Brexit freedoms to build prosperity and strengthen and level up every part of the country”.
But 30 per cent of those surveyed remain unhappy with the plan and are not seeing significant impacts for their businesses thus far.
This negative sentiment is particularly pronounced further from London and the South-East. The North-East, Yorkshire & the Humber, East Anglia, and the North-West were regions that were most dissatisfied with the government’s progress on levelling up.
However, some 37 per cent of manufacturers said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the government’s current levelling up agenda, down...