THE Government plans to spend less than one per cent of its infrastructure budget in the North-East, while ploughing tens of billions of pounds into transport in the South- East, according to a report.

Think tank IPPR North said that only six per cent of the Treasury’s budget for infrastructure would be spent on projects in the North of England – with only 0.04 per cent of its budget going to the North-East and three per cent to Yorkshire.

The overwhelming majority of spending will be in London and the South-East, where £28bn of investment is reportedly earmarked.

This amounts to an 84 per cent share of public funding under the National Infrastructure Plan.

The IPPR report calculated the transport spending translated to £5 per head in the North-East and £201 in Yorkshire and Humber – compared to £2,731 per head in the South-East.

The Department for Transport (DfT) says it had recently announced an additional £1.4bn extra of investment for local transport schemes outside London.

But even here many of the projects have been scaled back after receiving less than expected.

North Yorkshire County Council was last week told it would receive £35.9m of funding for the long-awaited A684 bypass for Bedale, Aiskew and Leeming Bar. It was less than the £43.7m needed from the Government and council chiefs will have to make up the shortfall of nearly £8m – despite facing stern austerity measures.

Ed Cox, director of IPPR North, said even with taking into account the forthcoming Olympics and London’s capital city status, the spending was still “deeply unfair”.

He said: “Skewed spending benefiting London and the South-East is nothing new, but these new figures are truly shocking and will strike most people as deeply unfair.”

North-West Durham MP Pat Glass, part of Labour’s front bench shadow transport team, said the spending imbalance could only deepen the North-South divide.

She said: “It’s not just about putting money into infrastructure programmes, it’s about putting money into infrastructure to attract skills.

“We have some very big projects which need to be got off the ground, such as the High Speed 2 railway route linking the North and South, and the huge off-shore windfarm at Dogger Bank that would have a massive impact on manufacturing in Teesside. If you invest, the work will come.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We have previously made it clear that the Government’s longterm vision for infrastructure includes a high-speed rail network connecting North and South.

“However we cannot ignore the fact London is the biggest city and a global capital supporting a large number of people who commute from outside the region.”

Last year, the Government cancelled the plan to upgrade a stretch of the A1 from Leeming to Barton, in North Yorkshire, as part of its Comprehensive Spending Review.

The upgrade, which would have completed the “missing link” of motorway between the North-East and London, was due to start in 2014.