Andy Burnham is off on his travels this week, aiming to reconnect No 10 and the government with voters and communities across the UK. But just weeks before he set out his stall as prime minister, promising to rebalance the economy with growth in every postcode, a government agency, National Highways, underlined the pulling power of the country’s dominant city-region. It announced that a giant tunnelling machine, 16.4 metres in diameter, “the largest ever used in Europe”, was to take England’s most expensive road under the Thames.

The Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), so far priced at £10bn-£11bn, is proving to be a contested 14.5-mile venture on the edge of Greater London. Objectors and local councils say it will deliver only short-term congestion relief and destroy ancient woodland and habitats. At 2.6 miles, the road tunnel will be the country’s longest, involving twin-boring for two three-lane highways connecting the M25 in Essex to the A2/M2 in Kent. The government has so far committed £3.1bn for funding the tunnel. It expects the rest from the private sector. We shall see.

No matter that the LTC is, on some estimates, likely to cost more per mile than the HS2 rail link from London to the Midlands, which, as things stand, will end illogically at Handsacre junction in Staffordshire – instead of connecting to Crewe, a key rail hub linking England, Scotland and Wales.

The prime minister’s ambitions are bold, but from where I’m writing, 282 miles north of London, in the Tyne valley, it’s clear that the priority of successive governments is sustaining the growth of the capital as it faces unprecedented demand for energy and water to service the more than 200 datacentres operating, or under development, in this expanding city-region.

National Highways insists that the Lower Thames Crossing will give “millions of........

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