{"id":158991,"date":"2025-06-05T01:41:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T01:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/158991\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T01:41:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T01:41:17","slug":"city-region-local-transport-to-get-15bn-boost-as-part-of-upcoming-spending-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/158991\/","title":{"rendered":"City region local transport to get \u00a315bn boost as part of upcoming spending review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced a significant \u201clong-overdue investment\u201d in local transport in England\u2019s city regions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

City regions in the North, Midlands and the South West will receive a \u00a315.6bn funding boost for buses, trams and local train infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Reeves travelled to Greater Manchester to announce the investment, the first to be revealed from next week\u2019s spending review. \u00a0<\/p>\n

This investment in local transport projects will help ensure regions outside London and the South East also benefit from transport infrastructure.<\/p>\n

In her speech, Reeves said that Britain \u201ccannot rely on a handful of places forging ahead of the rest of the country\u201d and today\u2019s funding is part of a \u201cnew economic model \u2013 driven by investment in all parts of the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said: \u201cFor too long, people in the North and Midlands have been locked out of the investment they deserve. With \u00a315.6bn of government investment, we\u2019re giving local leaders the means to drive cities, towns and communities forward, investing in Britain\u2019s renewal so you and your family are better off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The investment will see projects such as the Metro extension linking Washington to Newcastle and Sunderland, and the renewal of South Yorkshire\u2019s tram network linking areas in Sheffield and Rotherham, get off the ground.<\/p>\n

Other projects that could be brought to life with the five-year settlements include the West Yorkshire Mass Transit and the metro extension in Birmingham, which will connect the city\u2019s sports quarter and help reach the long-term ambition of delivering mass transit from East Birmingham to North Solihull.<\/p>\n

Manchester will also benefit from having new stops added to its Metrolink tram network and an extension to Stockport town centre.<\/p>\n

As part of today\u2019s announcement, Reeves also confirmed that next week\u2019s spending review will include changes to the rules in the Treasury\u2019s Green Book that determine whether projects receive funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This, she said, is \u201cto make sure that this government gives every region a fair hearing when it comes to investments\u201d.<\/p>\n

Green Book rules have previously been criticised for favouring investment in London and the South East.<\/p>\n

The full conclusions of the Green Book review will be published next week with the spending review.<\/p>\n

Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: \u201cThe economic revival of Greater Manchester, enabled by sustained investment in the tram network in particular, has already begun to close the productivity gap with London. To build on that success and replicate it across all our regions in the North, we need to see key projects delivered \u2013 including the extension of the Metro to Washington, the replacement of the Sheffield tram fleet, and the extension of Metrolink to Stockport.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many times in the past, a trade-off was made \u2013 due to limited funding \u2013 between connectivity within and between our regions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonny Haseldine, head of business environment at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: \u201cThe pathway to the strong and consistent growth the UK economy needs has to come through investment in our regions.That means developing regional infrastructure, including transport projects and grid connectivity, improved rail capacity and electrification of key sections of the network.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese projects can then give firms involved in the supply chains real confidence to start planning and investing in their local economies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today’s funding boost follows other recent government investments in public transport including \u00a32.15bn<\/a> to upgrade transport across the North of England announced in March. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week also saw South Western Railway (SWR) become the first operator<\/a> to be nationalised under Great British Railways reform plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced a significant \u201clong-overdue investment\u201d in local transport in England\u2019s city regions. City regions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,10680,4884,12,1144,712,1263,67220,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-158991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-government-and-politics","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-transport","18":"tag-transport-sector","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114628217016495324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}