Yorkshire misses out again as Chancellor backs mayors

Philip Hammond announced investment across the Northern Powerhouse, including a £30m plan which will include trialling improvements to mobile and digital connectivity on trains across the TransPennine route, but Yorkshire missed out again to mayors in the North West, North East and West Midlands.

A £1.7bn transport fund was announced for city regions to be spent by mayors. Specifically, the Transforming Cities Fund includes plans to deliver intra-city transport.

Half will be allocated via competition for transport projects in cities, which means that cities in Yorkshire will be able to bid for such funding. The other half will be allocated to the six combined authorities with already elected metro mayors – £74m for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, £243m for Greater Manchester, £134m for Liverpool City Region, £80m for West of England, £250m for West Midlands and £59m for Tees Valley.

Further devolution power for Greater Manchester was confirmed, with plans to develop a local Industrial Strategy. The West Midlands is to receive a second devolution deal.  The government will also make available to Mayoral Combined Authorities with elected mayors a £12m fund for 2018-19 and 2019-20, to boost the new mayors’ capacity and resources.

 

As part of his budget, Hammond confirmed that £300m will go towards ensuring High Speed infrastructure could accommodate future Northern Powerhouse and Midlands rail services. Transport for the North and Midlands Connect will work up the case for these services.

He said this would enable faster services between Liverpool and Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and York, as well as to Leicester and other places in the East Midlands and London.  It will also enable future services between Liverpool and Leeds to go via Manchester Piccadilly station.

Hammond said that the biggest falls in unemployment rates since 2010 have occurred in Yorkshire the Humber. But other than this and when talking about the TransPennine investment, the Yorkshire region was not mentioned at all in the budget delivery when the Chancellor talked about Northern Powerhouse investment; instead the region lost out to investment in the North East, when Hammond confirmed that the government was “paving the way” for the North of Tyne area to elect a Mayor in 2019.

Hammond said the announcements were being made as “Far too much of our economic strength is concentrated in our capital city.”

He added: “We have to get all parts of the UK firing on all cylinders.”

Hammond also focused on innovation and confirmed investment in the UK’s world-leading position in digital sector. The government will invest £21m over the next four years to expand Tech City UK’s reach – to become a “Tech Nation” and support regional tech companies and start-ups to fulfil their potential.

This will roll out a dedicated sector programme for leading UK tech specialisms, including AI and FinTech. Leeds and Sheffield were named as two regional hubs for this investment.

Head of policy and representation at West and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, Mark Goldstone, commented: “Of particular note was the £1.7bn Transforming Cities Fund, half of which will go automatically to those six areas with devolved powers and elected metro mayors. The other half will be made available for locations to bid into, with no guarantee of success.  Surely this must serve as a wake-up call for the region’s business and civic leaders to come together and hammer out a devolution deal to ensure future funds are distributed.”

 

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