MP calls for more transport investment outside London
Alison Seabeck, MP for Plymouth Moor View, is once again calling for greater investment in local and regional transport outside of London.
The evidence from Parliamentary Questions has always been that the South West loses out per head and the recent Transport Select Committee Report revealed that London receives thousands of pounds more investment per head than our region.
MP’s, including Ms Seabeck, have been calling on consecutive governments to take investment in transport, particularly the rail network, seriously in the South West.
The influential Transport Committee has now emphasised the need for greater equality in investment between London and the rest of the country, and the South West is certainly one area that misses out. The report concluded that ‘The under-funding of transport projects outside Greater London in recent years cannot be allowed to continue. Ministers…must ensure that there is a fairer allocation of funding to transport projects beyond London.’
Ms Seabeck said: “This committee report once again confirms the huge disparity in transport funding between London and the rest of the country. We in the South West have appealed to consecutive governments to improve transport systems down to, and within, the South West, yet under the Coalition government we seen very little progress.
“We had to pressurise the Government to ‘cough up’ the £30 million which was promised following the earlier flooding for works around Exeter but since then we have had the collapse of the line at Dawlish which left the far South West virtually cut off. The Government said ‘money was no object’, but if they are hoping that when the sun comes out we will all forget, they are very much mistaken.
"I want to know exactly how much they intend to invest in the diversionary route and the signalling changes which would help the line from Exeter to Penzance to be more reliable and faster.
“We have no motorway link down to Plymouth and our airport has been closed down despite concerted attempts by local group residents and others to resurrect it to benefit our City. Even the delivery of a petition to Downing Street on this issue many months ago made little difference. We once again see that Ministers simply are not doing enough to address inequalities in investment between London and the rest of the country.”
