A £15 billion plan to create the “Crossrail of the North” was endorsed by George Osborne yesterday in the Conservatives’ latest attempt to woo voters in the region.

Speaking in Manchester yesterday, the chancellor of the exchequer lent his support to an investment scheme drawn up by representatives from Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, and said the north could generate an extra £44 billion by 2030 if its economy caught up with the rest of the UK.

There is a huge gulf in the public resources provided to English regions. London receives more than 20 times the spending on infrastructure that the north east gets, some estimates say.

Figures from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) show that spending on transport infrastructure in the government’s national infrastructure plan is £5,312 per person in London, but £420 per person in the northwest and only £157 per person in the north east.

It also found that 80 per cent of the projects in the 20-year national infrastructure plan in London were up and running, compared with less than 60 per cent in the north.

Mr Osborne is leading a concerted attempt by the Conservatives to boost their standing in the north. Some evidence suggests that the Tories are starting to repair their disastrous poll ratings in the region. A YouGov poll published yesterday suggested that Labour had a seven-point lead among northern voters, a 23-point fall from last spring.

The chancellor appeared alongside leaders of the major northern cities yesterday to promise that projects designed to boost the north would be announced in the autumn statement.

A plan drawn up by Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield published yesterday included improved rail links and reduced journey times, bigger road capacity and better links to Manchester airport. Mr Osborne praised the proposals and said they were affordable. “If we can bring these northern cities together with these individual transport schemes that create a collective northern powerhouse, then you might achieve something really important in our country that has eluded successive governments of different colours — a real improvement of economic wealth in the north,” he said.

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester city council, said that the north had been hit by “years of neglect and under-investment”.

“East-west journeys take almost twice as long as equivalent journeys in the south and our rail links are too slow and uncoordinated,” he said. “Our motorways are congested, and there is an over-reliance on the M62.”

Ed Cox, the director of IPPR North, said: “I would say these plans are really important and don’t come a moment too soon because historically the north has fared worse than the south. But in part that’s because we have lacked the kind of leadership and the plan we have today.”

Local leaders have been using Mr Osborne’s campaign to bank pledges before the election and put pressure on Ed Miliband to follow suit in making big concessions to boost Britain’s regions. Labour was criticised last year when its support for the HS2 line between Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and London appeared to waver.

Meanwhile, Labour’s policy to devolve spending power to local councils is in danger of unravelling only weeks after Mr Miliband announced it.

The Labour leader announced proposals to reward groups of councils that worked together to boost regional growth by allowing them to keep all the extra business taxes raised as a result.

Mr Miliband said that the proposals, which formed the centrepiece of Labour’s plan, would help to mend Britain’s “fractured economy” as he announced a review led by Lord Adonis, the former transport secretary.

However, the plan has angered Labour MPs, who warn that it could widen the divide between wealthy councils in the south and those struggling to attract business in the north.

To appease MPs in the north east, the region has been exempted from the policy and told to come up with an alternative plan.