Portsmouth residents are £10,000 worse off since 2010 thanks to poor economic growth

The Centre for Cities think tank found the average person in the UK missed out on £10,200 in disposable income since 2010 when compared with predictions based on 1998-2010 economic trends.

Experts said the whole country, “including places that were doing relatively well before, have been levelled down because of the lack of growth”.

The analysis shows people in the wider Portsmouth area – which also includes Fareham, Gosport and Havant – have been left with £9,270 less in disposable income. This was more than the the South East average of £6,490.

Disposable income is the money a person is left with after paying bills, taxes and covering for the cost of living.

The think tank used primary urban areas in its analysis, which is a measure of the built-up area of a city, rather than individual local authorities. These are used to provide a consistent measure to compare concentrations of economic activity across the UK.

Andrew Carter, chief executive of the Centre for Cities, said: “Both the two main political parties have pledged to grow the economy and the general election debate will have growth at its heart.

“The challenge for the next Government is to go beyond the rhetoric and to do what’s needed to make this rhetoric a reality.”

The analysis revealed 4.6m new jobs were created across the country between 2010 and 2022 – considerably more than the 2.5m between 1998 and 2010.

However, productivity slowed during the same period. It increased by an annual average of 0.6% in the period 2010-2021, while this was 1.5% in pre-2010.

Mr Carter said the next Government must recognise “the British economy is an urban economy”.

He added: “Cities account for 9% of the land and over 60% of the economy, as well as 72% of high skilled jobs. Their slowdown is at the heart of why the national economy is struggling.”

In Portsmouth, there was a 0.7% growth in jobs.

Dr George Dibb, head of the Centre for Economic Justice at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: “Poor wage growth over the last decade or so is a damning indictment of a stagnant economy with no direction.

“Instead of spending the past 14 years investing in good green jobs of the future, we have bounced from one plan to another with 11 different economic strategies, nine business secretaries and seven chancellors.

“We need a serious and consistent strategy to return to a high growth and high productivity economy.”

Between 2004 and 2010, average wages in Portsmouth grew by an average of 4.86% per year but have fallen to 3.28% per year since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.

Portsmouth ranked dead last amongst 63 cities in the report when it came to housing stock growth with an increase of just 0.2% in 2022 - the last year on record – going from 235,420 homes to 235,930.

Portsmouth also ranked in the bottom 10 cities with the lowest start-up rate with 36.1 business start-ups per 10,000 population. In contrast London has 83.4 and Brighton 70.8 business start-ups per 10,000.

Portsmouth did however rank ninth on the list of cities generating the lowest emissions per capita.

Mr Morgan, MP for Portsmouth South said: “Portsmouth is fizzing full of potential but is lagging behind where it should be at the moment because of the Conservatives’ inability to grow our economy and their repeated refusal to invest in our city.

“After 14 years of Tory government, local people are feeling worse off, while businesses are not being given the support they need to grow and thrive.

“Only a Labour government will ensure our city does not continue to get overlooked. We will back Portsmouth businesses with a new industrial strategy to grow and create more high paid jobs for people in our city and across the country.”

A UK Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to levelling-up every corner of the UK, investing billions to support community regeneration projects, connecting 25.7m premises with gigabit broadband, and over 50% of England is now covered by a devolution deal.

“We have halved the number of people on low pay with increases in the national living wage, and thanks to an above-inflation increase to tax allowances, we have also saved the average earner over £1,000 a year since 2010.

“We did so after two massive global shocks – Covid and Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine – which affected every economy worldwide. And yet, the UK has grown faster than Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Japan.”