Government has announced today (Monday, 1 December, 2014) a series of significant investments into the Liverpool City Region economy resulting from the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Growth Plan submission made in March of this year.
The LEP estimates that this investment is worth an additional £300 to £400million pounds that will help to enable 20,000 jobs in the City Region on top of the £232 million secured from the Local Growth Fund announced in March. The LEP Growth Plan has now secured over £1/2billion of investment into the City Region.
Commenting on the announcement, Chair of the LEP, Robert Hough said: “When we submitted our Growth Plan we were conscious that what our City Region needed was major infrastructure investment to enable growth. Some of that investment would be required from national budgets outside of the Local Growth Fund itself.
“We identified 13 local major schemes, the funding for which was announced in July, but on top of that we identified the need to improve Access to the Port of Liverpool, invest in a new motorway junction servicing the £600m Mersey Gateway project in Halton as well as improvements to the M6 at Junction 22 to enable developments at the Parkside site in St. Helens, and we also included the need to improve the flow of the M53 to aid traffic movements to and from the Wirral and the connectivity with Cheshire and North Wales.
“This is a real coup for the City Region as it now looks like all of those scheme ‘asks’ are being funded. I do not think many other areas will be benefiting as much as we are from today’s announcements and it is a huge credit to the work we, as a private sector LEP have done, in promoting the economic case for investing in the City Region.”
Robert added: “As we’ve articulated to Government so well, we anticipate that up to 20,000 jobs can be enabled by the infrastructure investments we have obtained.”
The Long-Term Road Investment Strategy being launched by the Government today is part of a series of announcements linked to the Autumn Statement to be announced to the Chancellor on Wednesday.
The schemes for which the LEP sought funding are:
- Improved Access to the Port of Liverpool as part of a multi-model solution to increasing freight flows from the Port to key employment sites throughout the City Region, Atlantic Gateway area, and wider North of England
A new Junction on the M56 – Junction 11a – which will aid access from the motorway to the new £600m Mersey Gateway crossing
Improvements to Junction 22 on the M6 to aid access to the Parkside site which has the long-term potential of acting as a rail enabled regional logistics centre with over 5,000 jobs
Improvements to the M53, including a potential ‘Managed Motorway’ to aid traffic flows to and from Wirral and its key economic locations including the Mersey Waters Enterprise Zone and to improve City Region connectivity to Cheshire and North Wales
The Road Investment Strategy represents a £15bn commitment to national road infrastructure and the commitment to the City Region is based on recognition that the City Region offers huge economic potential.
Commenting on the Strategy Robert Hough said: “As a City Region we are establishing a really positive joint working relationship with the Department for Transport. Alongside other City Region colleagues I have a series of meetings at Ministerial and Official level over the last year and it’s increasingly apparent that our approach, based on our economic potential, is making significant headway. There is still work to do, and securing a High Speed Rail connection remains a priority, but I feel we are really making progress as today’s announcements show.”