Osborne flags pre-election transport upgrades for South West England

Chancellor George Osborne has promised to unveil "further improvements" to South West England's road and rail networks in the last autumn statement before the General Election.

Osborne has told Plymouth Sutton and Devonport MP Oliver Colvile that his 3rd December statement will "be an opportunity to set out further improvements to infrastructure in the South West, and the railways and roads that support Plymouth... I assure him that we are looking at specific transport improvements to connect better the whole of the South West with the rest of the United Kingdom".

The DfT is carrying out a feasibility study into which parts of the 110-mile A303, A30 and A358 corridor to upgrade and has also studied how Great Western services can be made less vulnerable to disruption after the region was cut off by train following severe winter weather.

Labour has accused ministers of "electioneering" visits to the South West and demanded a new rail link costing up to £3bn in order to improve the resilience of rail services. But Network Rail has concluded that alternative routes to the link along the coast to Plymouth would be "very poor value".