The British government has set out plans for a huge shift in power and wealth to left-behind regions of the country, a long-standing promise to the voters who helped put Prime Minister Boris Johnson in office.

The government fleshed out the promise on Wednesday with details of plans to invest in public transport, education, digital connectivity and research and development in poorer regions, mostly in central and northern England, by 2030.

It also said more regions will get elected mayors with substantial powers, and derelict industrial sites will be targeted for major regeneration projects.

As yet, though, there are few details of how the ambitious plans will be funded.

Michael Gove, the minister in charge of the leveling up plan, said Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union had been “a wake-up call” by voters in neglected areas.

“As well as a clear commandment to leave the European Union it was also a way of saying to people in (Parliament’s postcode) SW1, people like me, ‘look, it’s vital that you change the economic model of this country,’” he said.

Johnson hopes announcing the long-awaited plans will provide some respite from scandal over lockdown-breaching parties held in his office during the pandemic.

READ MORE:Report slams lockdown parties by Boris Johnson, staff

Long-held regional divides 

Johnson's Conservative government was elected in 2019 on a pledge to “level up” one of Europe’s most regionally unequal countries by improving transport links, infrastructure and economic opportunities in swaths of the country hit by shuttered industries and public funding cuts.

Britain has long had deep regional divides, with money and wealth concentrated in London and the south of England, while heavy industry dominated the north.

The closure of mines and factories as the UK moved from industrial powerhouse to service-based economy in recent decades hit those areas hard.

The divide grew wider when Conservative-led governments slashed public spending to curb a ballooning deficit after the 2008 global financial crisis.

Poorer areas that were most dependent on state funds suffered the biggest hit.

Former industrial cities in England such as Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, along with Glasgow, Scotland, have done much to reinvent themselves as economic, cultural and creative hotbeds, but smaller towns and cities are still scarred by poverty, poor education and high unemployment.

READ MORE:Post-Brexit tensions see French and British publics turn against each other