Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Transport Secretary Mark Harper have today announced the Local Transport fund, which will see £4.7billion invested from April 2025 into improving local transport connections, particularly across smaller cities, towns, and rural areas across the North and Midlands.
The funding will allow local authorities to invest into ambitious transport improvements from 2025 through to 2032, such as building new roads, improving road surfaces by filling potholes, refurbishing bus and rail stations, improving street lighting and more. Councils will work alongside their local MPs and communities to ensure this money is spent promptly and effectively.
Lancashire will see an allocation of £494,400,000 from the fund, and local councils will be expected to publish delivery plans for the projects they wish to invest in.
Commenting on this announcement, Nigel Evans MP said:
“I welcome the announcement of £4.7billion investment into the North and Midlands Transport network. This funding will be hugely valuable in improving roads, filling in potholes, boosting bus services and much more, especially in rural areas such as the Ribble Valley.
“We have seen an increase in potholes and a degradation of our road surfaces in recent times, and it is vital that a fair share of this funding comes to the North West as a whole and particularly to the Ribble Valley and other rural areas.
“This funding can allow for the improvements to rural transport networks that we desperately need, such as increasing rural bus services. I also sincerely hope that this funding will allow for a reversal in the cuts of the 1960s, and the reopening of the Clitheroe to Hellifield railway line on a daily basis. The reopening of this line would be a huge boost to the Ribble Valley and surrounding areas – opening up the Ribble Valley’s transport links to towns and cities to the East and North.
“I look forward to working with the local authority to ensure that the Ribble Valley and Lancashire County Council receive their fair share of this funding, and seeing the improvements to our rural transport network that this funding will allow.”