Urban Transport Group sets out transport priorities for Spending Review

The Urban Transport Group has written to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, setting out its priorities for urban transport in the Government’s forthcoming Spending Review.

In its submission to the Spending Review, which accompanies a letter to the Chancellor, the Urban Transport Group stresses the need:

• to replace ad hoc short term competition funding with a stable capital and revenue funding stream for local transport, to bring it in line with the long term funding programmes for national transport infrastructure;
• for a new and enhanced funding deal for buses to stem year-on-year decline in bus use and in recognition of the exceptional value for money that supporting bus services provides;
• for conditions to be attached to any additional funding for health in order to achieve greater coordination of the policies of the NHS with the goals of urban transport authorities, such as reducing congestion, improving public health, reducing road accidents, improving air quality and cutting carbon emissions.

Stephen Edwards, chair of the Urban Transport Group and executive director of South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, said: “To deliver on their potential, city regions need efficient and effective local transport networks, as well as good connectivity with each other. There are also the pressing and complex challenges of meeting net zero targets for greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality and harnessing the benefits of new technologies.

“To achieve these goals we need to put local transport funding on a proper long term footing. This will enable us to plan ahead and recruit and retain the right skills so that we can deliver improvements to urban transport networks in a rapid and cost effective way.”