Evidence readied for the North's strategic transport plan

Transport for the North has set out the evidence it will use to produce its strategic transport plan, due to be published when TfN becomes a statutory sub-national transport authority later this year. The organisation has published a new Position Statement, alongside initial Major Road and Integrated Rail reports. The plan will inform the agendas of the Department for Transport, Highways England and Network Rail, with added intellignece, TfN says. Projects to be included are predicted to be worth a million extra jobs and up to £100bn for the UK economy.

TfN’s Chief Executive Officer, David Brown, said: "We have a clear mission to transform the North’s economy by intelligently developing our transport infrastructure. Publication of this evidence is a pre-cursor to our multi-modal Strategic Transport Plan, which will be published for consultation later this year. The work presents a compelling case for change, underlining the economic and strategic benefits of improving freight and passenger transport across the whole of the North to drive economic growth."

The TfN Position Statement serves as a reminder of how far the organisation and its partners have got in building a case for change – of the need for more support for the North's business and trade with investment to bring better performance in skills, innovation and transport. The Statement sets out how later this year the TfN transport plan will look: 'multi-modal, objective-led and wih a flexible approach to investment, complimentary to the policies of TfN's partners and ambitious with a wide-ranging scope'. The Plan will explore what's needed in key corridors up to 2050, the Statement says.

For Integrated Rail, this means identification and development of what's needed along nine key corridors, while, in terms of Major Roads, the evidence reflects a growing recognition that investment has to be stepped up across a network of important routes much bigger than the Strategic Road Network that is currently the focus of roads funding.

“We want to enable the North to make a more significant contribution to the UK economy, through higher productivity, while also increasing job opportunities," David Brown added. "This will require the delivery of a sustained and aspirational investment programme across the North to build infrastructure, strengthen skills, harness innovation and encourage smart and innovative technology.”