In letters to the Times, correspondents from Devon & Cornwall offer different views:

Andy Burnham’s rewiring

Sir, Alice Thomson is right that politicians only seem to come to Cornwall to get sunburned and point at a fish, but we should be careful what we wish for (“Ignore southwest and PM will face a revolt”, Jul 1). Over many centuries, one of the attractions of living on the Celtic fringe has been that the government doesn’t often reach this far. If Andy Burnham really does manage to extend the government’s influence as far as Cornwall, then I worry that he will extend its interference as well. Maybe we should keep our heads down.
Peter Champness
Lostwithiel, Cornwall

Sir, I live in east Devon and know that the southwest is always last in line for any government grants. Transport to the peninsula is dire, as is the pollution of our rivers and seas. Plus, fewer of our young people go to university. To rectify all this we need our own Andy Burnham.
Nicola Daniel
Budleigh Salterton, Devon

Central Ilfracombe has stunning beaches but the lowest life expectancy of any rural town in the country, lower than Toxteth or Merthyr Tydfil.

“The job of No 10 North will be to make power flow into the Midlands, into the South West, into the East of England and, yes, into London as I said before, as much as the North East, Yorkshire & the Humber and here in the North West.”…..

“It will be given a mission to strive for equivalent living conditions in all parts of Britain – borrowing from the German Basic Law” – Andy Burnham.

Alice Thomson, in her column in the Times on Wednesday, writes that If Andy Burnham ignores the South West he will face a revolt. He gave the region one call in his speech but shouldn’t forget that Labour won more seats in the southwest — 23 — than any other party. 

Her worry is that the southwest will be called upon to subsidise the north when in fact they need the funds just as urgently.

Thomson spent the past few years on the South-West Social Mobility Commission and found the area always seems to lose out

Parts of Devon and Cornwall have lower life expectancy, more child poverty and less state help. Here is her:

Catalogue of Deprivation.

Burnham has now promised to extend the original route to Manchester. Yet the southwest still only has Brunel’s ageing train line to Cornwall that is regularly flooded.

The north already has two major railway lines running up the east and west coast, while HS2 will cost the country £100 billion just to reach Birmingham.

The only motorway stops at Exeter.

Investment in transport stands at £308 per head against a national average of £474.

De-industrialisation was seen as a northern tragedy but Cornwall lost its tin mining and is struggling to compete over lithium.

Plymouth, in Devon, is only now reviving its docks, helped by the defence engineering company Babcock and a need to re-arm the UK.

Central Ilfracombe has stunning beaches but the lowest life expectancy of any rural town in the country, lower than Toxteth or Merthyr Tydfil.

Poorer children in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall have some of the worst educational outcomes in the country from early years to GCSEs.

Fewer children than any other region go on to higher-level apprenticeships or universities, and young people are more likely to be in unskilled work.

Only 17 per cent of disadvantaged children go to university compared with 45 per cent in London. Teachers in Cornwall have the lowest salaries in England.

The area has missed out on levelling-up funding rounds despite having fewer nurses, GPs and dentists per head than the north and a more elderly population with complex health needs.

South West Water recorded the highest level of sewage discharges in 2025, according to the Environment Agency, with 46,164 spills lasting 407,006 hours.

The area’s infrastructure is creaking yet attracts little attention. Whitehall’s local growth fund spends £134.40 per head for the region compared with £210.80 given to the Northern Powerhouse.