Rishi Sunak used his first budget as chancellor to fund a slew of regional projects, including a mayor in West Yorkshire, an outpost of the British Library in Leeds and moving 22,000 civil servants out of London.

Sunak, MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire since 2015, also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to building a railway line between Manchester and Leeds – frustrating leaders in other northern cities including Liverpool and Hull by missing them out of the equation and promising nothing specific for towns, many of which went Conservative in the general election.

After years of infighting in Yorkshire, the chancellor confirmed that the leaders of West Yorkshire had finally agreed to the imposition of a mayor. He or she will be elected in May 2021, putting an end to political saga which, as the Yorkshire Post noted, “makes the struggle to ‘get Brexit done’ seem like a flash in the pan”.

Six years after Greater Manchester signed its devolution deal with the then chancellor, George Osborne, as part of his “northern powerhouse” agenda, the Leeds city region is now in line for £1.1bn of extra investment over 30 years, amounting to £37m each year, as well as new decision-making powers on transport, planning and skills.

The move means North and east Yorkshire and the Humber will be left without mayors. “Where is Hull’s devolution deal in all of this?” asked Emma Hardy, Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle.

The budget small print also provided a £25m heritage fund to West Yorkshire Combined Authority to support the British Library’s plans to open a site in the centre of Leeds, nicknamed the “British Library of the north”.

Levelling up the UK, or reducing the gap between Britain’s better off and poorer regions, has been a signature theme of Boris Johnson’s premiership so far. Sunak also announced extra funding worth £640m for Scotland, £360m for Wales and £210m for Northern Ireland.

Sunak said the government was spending at least £800m establishing two or more carbon capture and storage clusters by 2030 to “store millions of tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere”. These clusters, he said, would create up to 6,000 high-skilled, high-wage jobs in areas such as Teesside, Humberside, Merseyside or St Fergus in Scotland.

The chancellor said he was changing where the government made decisions too. At least 22,000 civil service roles would be moved out of central London over the next decade “the vast majority to the other regions and nations of the UK” , he said. And “a new economic decision-making policy campus of over 750 roles” would be established in the north of England, although he did not say where.

There was consternation in some northern cities after they failed to get a namecheck in Sunak’s speech. Bradford has been lobbying hard to get a stop on “Northern Powerhouse Rail”, a long-mooted railway line across the Pennines.

But Sunak merely reaffirmed the government’s commitment to fund the Manchester-Leeds leg. All the budget promised Bradford in terms of new money was “up to £500,000” to support its regeneration and development plans to increase the benefits of potential Northern Powerhouse Rail connections.

Liverpool wants to be the western terminus of Northern Powerhouse Rail. But Sunak failed to mention the maritime city, to the frustration of Steve Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool city region.

“[Sunak] could have mentioned the fact we are in detailed negotiations of the Liverpool to Manchester leg, which is much easier to get through a planning process because it’s basically farmers’ fields we will be going through,” Rotheram said.

“It’s not an engineering challenge because we are not going through the Pennines. I don’t see the myopia changing in government sometimes. They talk about getting things done, well, this is oven-ready, to use government parlance. The focus as always is on other areas.”

But Sunak did promise £4.bn for “London-style” transport funding settlements over the next five years, shared between the Liverpool city region and the other seven mayoral combined authorities – in West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Tyne and Wear, west of England, Sheffield city region and Tees Valley.

“While it will be for elected mayors to put forward ambitious plans, the government would welcome the opportunity to support a range of schemes, such as the renewal of the Sheffield Supertram, the development of a modern, low-carbon metro network for West Yorkshire and tram-train pilots in Greater Manchester,” said Sunak, adding that discussions would open with Greater Manchester, Liverpool city region and the West Midlands “in the coming months”.

The West Midlands combined authority – run by former John Lewis managing director Andy Street, the Conservative mayor who is up for re-election in May – was given more than £160m from the local growth fund “to accelerate progress on the Eastside Metro extension and phase one of the Sprint bus rapid transit network”.

Further south, Sunak also promised to build a new, high-quality dual carriageway and a two-mile tunnel in the south-west to speed up journeys on the A303, and to “remove traffic from the iconic setting of Stonehenge”.