LEPs get to work on setting transport priorities but tough questions remain

England’s Local Enterprise Partnerships are busy identifying what transport priorities to include in their strategic economic plans, which the Government will use to allocate the new Single Local Growth Fund. But big questions remain about how the new system will work.

Andrew Forster

15 November 2013

Graham Pendlebury (left) said the DfT had no intention of scrutinising LEP transport projects “line-by-line”. Tony Travers said LEPs were “less legitimate than local government, pure and simple”.

Tony Travers

Local authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships across England are gearing up for the biggest shake-up in years to how local transport is funded. From April 2015 more than £1bn of local transport funding a year will be channelled into the Government’s new £2bn Single Local Growth Fund. A proportion of the funding is being allocated on a formula basis but a big slice will be allocated according to the quality of strategic economic plans (SEPs) currently being prepared by...