Businesses to get more of a say in transport projects

New bodies which have been created to represent the views of local stakeholders and other interests could result in work on transport projects going through their area being speeded up.

According to the Department of Transport, local major transport schemes have traditionally been individually approved and funded by government under a centralised bidding process.

“In the future funding will be allocated locally according to population, allowing priorities to be decided by newly-established Local Transport Bodies (LTBs) which will be made up of local transport authorities, local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) and others with a key interest,” the department said in a statement.

Local businesses, including manufacturers, could be part of the new process.

Transport Minister Norman Baker said: “We want decisions on new transport infrastructure to be made more efficiently, and at a more local level than has previously been the case.”

A senior economic adviser at the Institute of Directors’ said the move to LTBs from 2015 was the “right decision”.

Corin Taylor said the move “should give businesses more of a say on key projects in their region and speed up approval of vital work to ease road and rail bottlenecks.

“Britain’s government is over-centralised, with far too many decisions still made in Whitehall, but today’s move should restore some much-needed control to local areas.

“It will now be vital for the new LTBs to put together a list of priorities, so that work can start as soon as responsibility is transferred,” he added. 

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