Perfect chance to reignite Cities Deal

The heads of terms document on the Tay Cities Deal was finally agreed on November 22 2018, after many months of wrangling and discussion locally. The agreement carried the signatures of Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, Michael Matheson, and the UK Government’s then Secretary of State for Scotland, David Mundell.

It also bore the monikers of the respective leaders of Angus, Dundee and Perth and Kinross councils, a senior Fife representative and had buy-in from the private sector. No one present doubted the importance of the occasion. The agreement was the key to unlocking hundreds of millions of pounds of new public and private sector investment – and thousands of jobs – for the Tay corridor.

But since that momentous moment, the wheels of the deal – which had always been sticky – have all but stopped turning. The promised funding has not materialised and the projects in line for investment have been left in limbo.

Any momentum there was has been lost, with the macroeconomic attention instead switching to Brexit negotiations and, latterly, the huge impacts of Covid-19.

Today, Boris Johnson will be in Scotland in the hope of bolstering the Union. Optics-wise for the prime minister, it would be the perfect moment to reignite the Tay Cities Deal.

But no one with experience of the tortuous deal process will be holding their breath for progress. Expectations have been raised and dashed too often for that.