Stone residents will be pleased to hear that Staffordshire is set to receive more than £285m in transport funding with the aim of building new roads, improving junctions, filling potholes and tackling congestion.
This comes as the government announces £4.7 billion to tackle transport across the North and Midlands and reinvest the money saved from scrapping the northern leg of HS2.
However, none of the money will be able to be spent before the general election, which is expected this year.
The funding, which will be available from April 2025, will last for seven years, which roughly equates to £40 million every year. The extra funding also represents nine times more than local authorities currently receive.
Local authorities will be expected to publish their delivery plans for which projects they wish to invest in, and will be held accountable by the government and local communities to ensure the money is spent effectively. Additional guidance on how local authorities can use the additional funding has not yet been made available.
Speaking at the Branston Interchange works, Cabinet Office Minister John Glen said:
“So I’ve come here to the Branston Interchange because it’s an example of a project where we’ve unlocked housing development and development generally through a small amount of money, in this case, it was six million pounds of levelling up money but what I’m saying is because we’ve taken the choice around stopping HS2 northern leg there is additional money to invest in communities and towns across the West Midlands. I think it’s around £1.1 billion over the West Midlands as a region, and that’s the choice we’ve made as a government.
“What I’m hoping is that the conversations with the local authority is about saying look, you’ve got this extra money; you should now be working with local businesses, local towns and mayors to actually say, well lets maximise this use and what I’ve seen here at the Branston Interchange is that there’s been a lot of working together over several years to make the development we see outside work and make it happen.”
As part of the measure, the £2 bus cap, which was introduced in January 2023, is set to be extended until the end of the year.
Midlands Connect Chief Executive Maria Machancoses welcomed the news, saying:
“We welcome this announcement and the improvements it will bring for our communities and businesses across the Midlands, and we will continue to work with Government and support our local authorities, to ensure these vital Network North transport upgrades are delivered.”
The minister continued: “A big national infrastructure project that was HS2, I think it was £36 billion was absorbing about a third of the transport budget as a whole and what we’ve decided is that intra-regional connectivity, investing in new roads and transport infrastructure within counties, within towns rather than just linking big cities to London is more important.
“We are going to maximise opportunity for maximum ambition across local authorities as they say well what can we do here to make the best of this part of the world, right in the centre of the country, centre for logistics and distribution. We have a thriving communications infrastructure and job centre here and we want to maximise that but it’s not for us in Whitehall to determine that it’s for local MP’s to work with their local authorities to make the right investments in their town.”
