Pressure for Metro funding
CHANCELLOR Phillip Hammond has been urged to provide a fair deal for the Tyne and Wear Metro after the Government announced it was giving £250m to upgrade a similar transport network in the West Midlands.
Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Monday that the West Midlands is getting cash to extend the Midland Metro, a tram network running between Birmingham and neighbouring towns and cities.
It comes as Mr Hammond prepares to present his Budget statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday. But the announcement highlights the failure to agree a funding deal for the Metro, even though the Department for Transport has said it accepts the network urgently needs a new fleet of trains.
Ministers are in talks with transport authority Nexus about provid- ing 84 new trains at a cost of £400m.
Options the Department is considering include a complex Private Finance Initiative deal (PFI), in which a private firm would buy the trains and then lease them to Nexus over a period likely to be 35 years.
But Nexus is urging the Government to either provide a grant or to allow it to borrow the money without using a PFI scheme.
The West Midlands funding is a straightforward grant from central Government. It comes from a new £1.7bn ‘Transforming Cities Fund’ and future allocations are expected to include grants for other parts of the country.
Gateshead MP Ian Mearns said the Chancellor should fund the Metro directly. He said: “The Chancellor has an opportunity on Wednesday to show there isn’t one set of rules for one part of the country and a different set of rules, and a more expensive set of rules, for another part of the country.”
Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwu- rah said: “I’m very glad to see investment going into the West Midlands. But we in the North East have been making our case for years now, and the disparity in the funding going into our region and other parts of the country is already huge.
“We need investment in the Tyne and Wear Metro for our economic future. So I’m hoping for a decision from the Chancellor announcing a grant in the Budget, and if not then he’ll be letting the North East down.”
The West Midlands funding follows lobbying from MPs in the region as well as the elected West Midlands Mayor, Conservative Andy Street.
Measures known to be in Mr Hammond’s Budget include a boost to the car industry, with £400m for electric car charging points and measures to put driverless cars on the UK’s roads by 2021.
This could help businesses including Nissan which are manufacturing electric vehicles and developing autonomous cars. Ministers believe the driverless car industry will be worth £28bn to the UK economy by 2035 and support 27,000 jobs.
To help businesses grow as fast as possible, the Government will allow developers to apply to test their vehicles on the roads nationwide without a human operator for the first time. This will remove the last remaining barrier to advanced, onroad testing putting the UK in the fast lane of global developments for this technology.
Mr Hammond says he hopes fully self-driving cars will be on UK roads in as little as three years. And by creating a new £400m Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund, the Government hopes to improve access to finance for businesses to deliver charge points across the country, encouraging people to switch to electric cars.