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Leeds road pricing u-turn as £2 billion fund is axed
Ministers have abandoned their bid to tempt Leeds City Council into adopting road pricing and axed a huge £2bn fund for public transport projects.
In a statement to MPs, the Government revealed that it has scrapped the controversial Transport Innovation Fund (TIF).
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The Department for Transport (DfT) had pledged to pay 200m into the fund each year for ten years from 2008/09 to 2018/19, making it a 2bn cash pot.
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However, councils were told they could only win hand-outs from TIF if they agreed to introduce some form of "demand management", or congestion charging.
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Leeds was given 2.3m of Government cash to investigate congestion charging, even though the council's Conservative/Liberal Democrat leadership repeatedly spoke out against it.
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Now, in a major u-turn, the DfT announced that TIF will be dumped and replaced with a so-called Urban Challenge Fund, which will not require councils to introduce pay-as-you-drive schemes.
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But the DfT has refused to say how large this new fund will be, prompting accusations that the Government has pulled off a
huge "stealth cut" in transport funding.
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Coun Andrew Carter, the Tory joint leader of Leeds City Council, said: "The Secretary of State for Transport has had to abandon the shambolic charging policy but at the same time the Government has trousered the 2bn and quite clearly this money is not going to be available to invest in much needed transport infrastructure, which is scandalous.
"What they have done is effectively cut the transport budget by stealth."
Whitehall's road pricing plans suffered a crippling blow in December 2008 when 79 per cent of voters in Manchester rejected plans for a congestion charge.
Manchester was told that a "yes" vote would lead to the city getting 1.5bn of public funding for new tram lines, extra buses and trains. Other councils were encouraged to bid for the TIF money but only 40m of the fund was ever paid out.
The written statement by transport minister Sadiq Khan admitted the flaws in the policy, saying: "Its weaknesses lay in its too narrow a focus on the issue of congestion, the failure to win public acceptance for the more challenging proposals.
"The new fund will draw on the lessons from TIF and the new ideas that have come forward."
Mr Khan added: "Funding for the Urban Challenge Fund will be top-sliced from the department's overall funding allocation after the next
Comprehensive Spending Review."
The new fund will also try to cut carbon emissions, improve road safety and encourage healthy alternatives like cycling and walking.
Another transport programme, the Sustainable Travel Towns initiative, is being merged into the new fund.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
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