A massive transport snub for the region

Jul 6 2009 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

MINISTERS preparing to fund the nation's most important transport assets have ruled that large swathes of the North East are of no "strategic importance".

The Government has decided to downgrade the importance of Newcastle International Airport, the Port of Tyne, links across the Pennines and connections to Scotland. The plans will inevitably mean Government cash from 2014 will be focused on routes across the South and at best up to Manchester.

The A696, linking the airport to the A1, will also not be maintained from central Government funds, despite Newcastle being home to the second biggest airport in the North.

Large sections of the A1 have also being left out of plans setting out the national networks thought to be of most importance over the next decade. As a result the region will have to use an increasingly limited cash pot to fund the routes it considers vital to the economy.

Despite letters from the head of the region’s elected public sector and the regional minister, alongside representations from the development agency, the Government has refused to back down and take responsibility for some of the North’s key assets.

Critics have secretly said there is a view that civil servants at the Department for Transport believe they can “tick the North boxes” by simply looking at links to Leeds and Manchester.