New figures have come to light showing a widening gap between transport spending in London and the rest of the country despite senior coalition ministers promising to reverse the trend.
Analysis of Treasury public spending figures – carried out by the Passenger Transport Executive Group, which represents transport authorities in six of England’s largest conurbations – show that London till gets the lions share of transport funding.
A total of £644 per head was spent on transport in the capital compared to £223 in the North East, £279 for the North West, £251 for Yorkshire and Humberside and £198 for the West Midlands.
The analysis shows out that although London accounts for just 15% of the population, the city received 34% of transport spending in 2011/12 and is the only region where proportion of funding exceeds proportion of population.
The chancellor, George Osborne, has repeatedly vowed to end the regional disparity in transport funding. Both before being elected and since the coalition came to power.
‘For years, transport investment in the north of England was neglected. Not under this coalition Government,’ he told the House of Commons in his March 2012 Budget speech.
But PTEG chair Geoff Inskip, who is chief executive of the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority, points out transport spend per head outside of London continues to be ‘dwarfed’ by what the capital gets.
‘London has made an effective case to Government for high levels of spending on transport and the onus is on us to do likewise,’ he said. ‘But the starting point for this debate needs to be a recognition that there is a substantial disparity in public spending on transport between London and our cities – a disparity that is not matched in other key areas of public spending.
‘If the UK economy is to be rebalanced then we need to see some rebalancing of the transport spending that underpins the national economy.’
