Transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, has said she is examining stronger and more locally-accountable transport governance arrangements for Britain’s big cities.
The minister told a fringe event at this week’s Labour Party conference, organised by the Centre for Cities, she was looking at the issue with the Department for Communities and Local Government.
‘We are getting to the situation where cities have the capacity and the potential to deliver their own solutions.
‘I don’t see any reason why we should not have stronger locally-accountable transport governance. We have got to get a system which works better than the one at the moment.
‘Why isn’t there a Transport for Birmingham and a Transport for Manchester?’
She added that the DfT would be responding to the Eddington report on transport infrastructure over the next few weeks.
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