Time to remake the home of the World's First Inter-City Railway
The North West has long been the Northern powerhouse of British industry. Home to over half a million businesses, the region has the third largest economy in the UK. From Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach to Liverpool’s historic docks, the North West is at the heart of Britain’s industrial heritage.
But the opportunities aren’t what they once were. We need to return to an economy that delivers well-paying jobs in our towns and communities. The places we are proud to call home.
We need more new industries, new ideas and new infrastructure to seize that spirit of enterprise.
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Actions to make Britain Energy secure by 2030
A playbook for energy security
From 2020 to 2022, international gas prices surged by 400%. This led to a 235% rise in household electricity bills. In other words, every £1 rise in international gas prices led to a 58p rise in the electricity bills paid by British families.
We recently published The Powerbook which includes 25 actions for energy security to stop this from happening in future.
The challenge
The price of solar, onshore wind, and offshore wind have fallen by 62%, 55%, and 75% in under a decade. The main obstacles to generating more energy from wind and solar now are a broken planning system and archaic regulation for grid connections.
It is not inevitable that it should take 12 years to build a new wind farm, 4 years to build a new solar farm, or 8 years to build a new transmission line to take energy to where it is most needed.
Let's get building
To make Britain energy secure, we will need to more than triple the amount of energy generated from offshore wind, connect two new nuclear power stations to the grid, and build more grid infrastructure in the next seven years than was built in the last 32. It will mean accelerating the development of technologies such as hydrogen, batteries, and small modular reactors.
The challenge is massive – it will require genuine political will, major investments in new technologies, and innovation from industry – but so is the reward.
Getting the North West back to what it's good at
Britain Remade’s role is to act as a broker between our supporters in North West and politicians in Westminster. Britain Remade will campaign for practical ideas to improve the North West, and make sure politicians are listening.
By investing in new clean sources of electricity and reigniting the North West's industry, we can have decent jobs, affordable housing, and clean, cheaper and secure energy.