In 1825, the world’s first public steam railway was opened with one terminus in Darlington. In 2018, I travelled from Darlington to Middlesbrough on a Pacer: the unholy union of a Leyland National bus body and a rail bogie. In the 193 years between these events, Darlington had gone from cutting edge of the world’s railways to the forgotten end of Britain’s.
 
Last year saw the replacement of any lingering Pacers and yesterday’s budget saw good news for Darlington: 750 senior civil servants will move to a new “Treasury North” campus in the town. Leeds will also become the home for a new national infrastructure bank.
 
Yesterday’s announcement represents at least the beginnings of a thorough commitment to areas left behind by Britain’s long economic transition from industry to service. It is a concrete action for the north of England in a way the Dominic Cummings-era policy distractions – like the “plan” to move the House of Lords to York – were not.
 
One may be forgiven for detecting a political edge in the choice of Darlington – with its Conservative mayor and MP – over, for example, Newcastle. The town does, though, sit conveniently on the East Coast Main Line; it is only a short commute from the Tyne and Wear conurbation.
 
These connections will not, however, guarantee success. After the Office for National Statistics moved its head office from London to Newport in 2006, 90% of its London-based employees chose to remain in the capital and find other jobs. The work of the office suffered accordingly. In an era of increasingly flexible working practices, the risk grows that Darlington may have the office but not the people.
 
Long-term commitments can, however, pay dividends for areas outside London. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s presence in East Kilbride – established in the 1980s and augmented in 2010 – now contributes around £30 million to the local economy every year.
 
The Darlington campus can enjoy similar success but it will also need similar long-term investment, not only by Sunak but also by his successors. It will need senior civil servants with incentives and reasons to do substantial work there.
 
Sunak’s announcement of the Darlington hub upgrades the government’s talk of “levelling up” from puff to practice. But if the government wants to sustain and expand a real geographic distribution of power, this is just the beginning. Otherwise the UK government’s presence in Darlington risks becoming as neglected as the Pacer.