Shapps: £4.2 billion for local public transport

A Conservative majority government will boost local trains, buses and trams in England's biggest cities - and the towns around them - with billions of pounds in new spending, the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, announced today. 

A new, devolved and long-term Local Public Transport Fund will give eight mayoral or combined authority areas the control and certainty of funding they need to invest. 

While local leaders will have the final say over how to spend it, projects it is expected to help fund include: 

• a new metro or light rail in West Yorkshire, including to Dewsbury, Pudsey and the Spen Valley;
• extensions to the Metrolink tram system in Greater Manchester, including to Stockport and Bolton;
• upgrades to the Tyne & Wear Metro and new heavy rail lines in the North East;
• new tracks and platforms at Darlington station, dramatically increasing the number of local services in the Tees Valley;
• extensions to the West Midlands Metro tram, including to Solihull and Birmingham Airport; 
• new heavy rail or tram-train services around Sheffield, including to Stocksbridge;
• rail extensions and upgrades in and around Liverpool; 
• the new MetroWest system around Bristol; 
• bus rapid transit systems, priority corridors and other improvements for buses in each of the eight areas. 

£4.2 billion will be allocated to the new fund, with more to come from the Government's promise of £100 billion for infrastructure investment in the new Parliament. 

Local leaders will also be given significantly more control over existing local rail services, including fares, service patterns, rolling stock and stations. 

We will also support them to exercise their new powers over buses under the 2017 Bus Services Act. A national bus strategy and a long-term funding settlement for buses will be announced at Spending Review 2020.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: 

“These plans will change the face of local transport in towns and cities across the country. 

“They will kickstart the transformation of services so they match those in London, ensuring more frequent and better services, more electrification, modern buses and trains and contactless smart ticketing.

“While Labour has confirmed it will raid the budget to build roads, the Conservatives believe in raising funding, improving quality and delivering value for commuters across the UK.

“This goes to the heart of the choice on the 12th December: a Conservative majority government that will get Brexit done and deliver the transport investment that our towns and cities need. Or a hung Parliament led by Jeremy Corbyn that would spend the next year consumed by the chaos of two referendums.

ENDS 

Notes to Editors 

• The eight combined authorities or joint transport committee areas are: North East, Tees Valley, West Yorkshire, Sheffield City Region, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, West Midlands and West of England. They cover both big metropolitan cities such as Leeds and Manchester and smaller places in the wider conurbations, such as Bury, Keighley, Dudley and Stockton. 
• The power and money given to each of the eight combined authorities will vary depending on their need, capacity and ambition. It will also come with obligations for each area to raise further sums locally, perhaps by means such as commercial development at stations.
• Projects which go beyond individual combined authority boundaries such as Northern Powerhouse Rail, the Midlands Rail Hub, and other pan-regional rail upgrades will be funded from different budgets. 
• The money is in addition to other new local transport funding streams, such as at least £500 million to reopen railway lines closed under the Beeching Report .
• Bids for the new fund will open in 2020.
• Labour would take all money away from road building. The £28.8 billion National Roads Fund is currently funded by hypothecating Vehicle Excise Duty, which brought in £6.4 billion in 2017-18. Labour have said they would fund free bus travel for under 25s at £1.4 billion a year, a Bus Transformation Fund at £1.3 billion a year, a cut to rail fares at £1.5 billion a year and the £2.5 billion resource spending required for their cycling plans, all from VED. These plans total £6.7 billion a year – more than the amount brought in by Vehicle Excise Duty and leaving nothing to spend on improving England’s roads (DfT, Roads Funding Information Pack, November 2018, link; OBR, Vehicle Excise Duty, 13 March 2019, link; The Telegraph, 12 April 2018, link; LabourList, 25 April 2019, link; BBC News, 2 December 2019, link; The Guardian, 1 December 2019, link; Hansard, 17 October 2019, link).