Brexit voting towns most likely to suffer

A new report has warned that towns who were more likely to vote leave in the EU referendum are the areas of the UK that could lose most from the Brexit process.

With votes for Brexit in fast growing and declining towns having a key role in shaping the ‘leave’ majority, the report finds that those in towns and regions that voted for Brexit will be most likely to suffer the worst consequences for at least the next 10 years.

New Powers, New Deals: Remaking British Towns after Brexit, published by the Carnegie Trust, is calling for more attention to be paid to Britain’s towns and for the creation of a UK-wide ‘towns deal’ to provide focus and support to towns after Brexit.

Duncan Maclennan, lead author of the report, said: “Our research tells us that those who voted to leave during Brexit were more likely to live in towns that have been neglected by policy makers. These difficulties primarily arose because of UK failures in manging places rather than membership of the EU.

“Brexit is more likely to exacerbate than resolve the difficulties of most UK towns and although it may be too soon to really know what the precise impact of Brexit on towns will be, it’s clear that there needs to be action now to ensure that present neglect ends. Towns therefore need to urgently rethink their economic futures, and this needs to be done whether Brexit is soft, hard or even cancelled.”