What effect will the Comprehensive Spending Review cuts have on transport?

TransportXtra will today be providing news and analysis of the Comprehensive Spending Review as it happens.

After the long wait since the election of the coalition government in May, today will see chancellor George Osborne finally announce the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Some of the headline figures are already known - £83bn of public spending cuts overall up to 2015 and £29bn of tax rises over the same period.

Meanwhile, Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury was yesterday photographed in his official car reading a secret document that revealed 500,000 public-sector jobs will be axed in the coming months. Fears are mounting that such a job cull could lead to a wave of strike action by government employees.

The effect on transport remains unclear. Sources suggest that the Department for Transport could be amongst the worst hit by civil service staffing cuts. Meanwhile, major projects such as Crossrail and Thameslink are believed to be reasonably safe as the government is understood to be supportive of projects that are essential for future economic growth.

Plans for additional rail capacity through the procurement of new trains, including the Intercity Express Programme, are likely to be hit with the axe. Other rail upgrades, including electrification schemes, seem likely to come under the Treasury microscope.

For the bus industry, the future of the Bus Service Operators Grant is likely to be resolved today, a move that could see the subsidy either scrapped or scaled back.

Elsewhere the fate of a number of stalled transport infrastructure schemes are likely to be revealed.