Newcastle leaders demand improved transport links to region

Mar 13 2009 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

CITY leaders have written to the Government demanding the region’s ports, roads and airports are included in a nationwide economic masterplan.

Experts at the Department of Transport have been told that a draft plan looking at the Government’s funding priorities after 2014 overlooks almost all the region’s main assets.

Newcastle Airport and Port of Tyne have both been left off a list of “strategic national corridors” which will be used to direct hundreds of millions of pounds worth of Government funding for at least a decade.

Civil servants putting together the plans have also been criticised for offering no hope to campaigners seeking upgrades to the A19 and the A1.

In a letter to Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon, Gateshead council leader Mick Henry said that as “the most peripheral of the English regions” the North East could not afford to be left out of infrastructure spending plans.

Coun Henry, leader of the Association of North East Councils, said he was “concerned” that the Port of Tyne was not considered important enough by the Government, despite “its increasing strategic importance, at a regional, national and international level”.

Mr Hoon was also told not to put the region’s connections to the capital at risk by downgrading the importance of the Newcastle International Airport.

Mr Henry said: “A fundamental part of the Government’s consultation process should also be to consider improvements in access, by road and rail, to airports in the UK.

“Newcastle International is in the top 10 UK airports, is the second major gateway to the North after Manchester Airport and plays a critical role in the North’s connectivity, providing flights to the rest of the UK, Europe and worldwide.”