07.07.14
Rail services to benefit from Growth Deal funding
Rail services across the West Midlands and Greater Manchester are to receive multi-million pound boosts in investment under the government’s new Growth Deal package.
Under the new scheme, which is designed to give local authorities greater control of their funding, more than £385m has been committed for road, rail and tram schemes across the three Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the West Midlands – Greater Birmingham & Solihull – Black Country – Coventry & Warwickshire.
Subject to successful business cases, the funding announcement will see £100m go towards new tram extensions linking Birmingham New Street Station with Centenary Square, Broad Street and Five Ways and with the planned HS2 station in Eastside. A further £4.5m will also be put aside for the upgrade of Wolverhampton railway station and the surrounding area including a Metro tram connection.
As part of Greater Manchester’s wider Growth Deal package, the city has been successful in securing £50m of transport investment from the Local Growth Fund (LGF) for 2015/16.
This is the first part of a longer-term deal with Greater Manchester that will result in more than £350m invested in 12 major transport schemes between 2015/16 and 2020/21, including new transport interchanges, new roads, new bus priority measures and more trams for Metrolink.
Greater Manchester is already set to receive £110 m of Local Transport Block money (agreed in December 2013) and, under the deal announced today, an additional £154m of LGF money will be provided between 2016/17 and 2020/21.
Dr Jon Lamonte, chief executive of Transport for Greater Manchester, said: “Today’s announcement is a huge validation of all the great things we are already achieving in Greater Manchester, and puts us on a very firm footing for the future.
“It clearly acknowledges our proven track record of delivering major transformational projects, on time and on budget, that have economic, social, health and environmental benefits at their very core: from the Metrolink expansion, to award-winning transport facilities and low-carbon initiatives.”
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