Time right to sort missing links

A passenger boards a National Express train from London.

Better broadband, better road and rail links. Three key pillars of East Anglia's future prosperity will be discussed at a major conference today , and as business editor Paul Hill reports, the time is ripe to press the region's case for investment.

Timing is everything in politics.

Even the most well-crafted argument can fall flat or fail to sway opinion if it is heard at the wrong moment.

Sometimes calls for action - no matter how worthy - are simply drowned out by the noise of other events.

Remember how one former spin doctor thought 9/11 was a "good day to bury bad news" or how the row over MPs expenses at its height earlier this year seemed to overshadow everything else?

In a sense, there is nothing new in the arguments that will be heard at the Shaping Norfolk's Future conference in Norwich today .

But the timing feels right.

The case for a complete dual carriage-way link from Norwich to the motorway network has a long history, so too calls for better rail links from the city to London.

The EDP and others have argued for some time that fast connections to the internet have the potential to liberate East Anglian businesses from the constraints of geography; giving firms access to new markets and extending their commercial reach.

Yet the rural nature of the region still makes it less likely the private sector will foot the bill to give East Anglia super-fast broadband - the market dictates that the investment will go to where demand is greatest.

But a general election is just months away.

Manifestos have yet to be written, spending priorities to be agreed.

Politicians should be ripe for persuasion and senior Tories and Liberal Democrats need to hear the strength of the case to invest in East Anglia as much as the Labour incumbents in the offices of state.

So too the time is right to press East Anglia's case with the Sir Humphreys in Whitehall - the civil servants who will fill and prioritise papers in ministers' red boxes whichever party wins the election.

What better time to remind them all of the region's potential and the steps that are needed to foster future prosperity?

Oh, but what about the recession…

Cuts in public spending are coming, we all know that.

The cost of bailing out the banks and propping up the economy has changed the political debate from how much each party will spend, to where the cuts will fall and how deep they will be.

Does that mean there will be no government money to invest in infrastructure - in road, rail and broadband?

No.

But it does put a new emphasis on priorities. It does mean that ministers will need to be convinced that every pound spent will have the biggest possible impact.

It makes it all the more important for East Anglia to marshall the arguments now and present the strongest case - and with a unified voice.

But there are some notable gaps on the conference agenda.

Better road, rail and broadband links may help create jobs - but we also need a skilled workforce to fill them.

Educational attainment has been improving in Norfolk in recent years, but still about half of our 16-year-olds fail to meet the "standard" of five A to C grade GCSEs, including English and maths. When trends suggest that low-tech manufacturing has moved overseas where labour is cheaper, we will need to increase the number of East Anglian graduates in engineering and the sciences.

Chris Starkie, chief executive of Shaping Norfolk's Future, said: "Norfolk's infrastructure lags behind that of almost every other part of the country.

"Our aim is to drive forward the economy of Norfolk, creating more jobs and greater prosperity."