Public 'taken for fools' over transport pledges - mayor

Tracy Brabin said people were sceptical over government promises over transport

People have been "taken for fools" over pledges to reallocate cash from the scrapped northern legs of the HS2 rail line to local transport projects, West Yorkshire's mayor has said.

Tracy Brabin said numerous "promises" by the government had been broken, meaning people did not "really believe" the cash would be delivered.

Her comments came after the prime minister announced £4.7bn worth of infrastructure funding for councils across northern England and the Midlands.

But Mayor Brabin said West Yorkshire's transport network was "broken" and the new cash would not even be distributed until next year.

Rishi Sunak said the promised new transport investment was "almost unprecedented"

The government shelved the parts of the HS2 line between the West Midlands to Manchester, and to the East Midlands, in October following spiralling costs in recent years.

In East Yorkshire on Monday to hold a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised that nearly £5bn from the project would be "reallocated" to local authorities outside big cities in northern England and the Midlands.

Councils would be responsible for allocating funds to specific projects, in line with government guidance.

The north of England will be allocated £2.5bn and the Midlands will receive £2.2bn from money previously earmarked for HS2, but the funding will not be made available until April 2025.

Speaking on BBC Radio York, Mr Sunak said the amount of money being allocated to the North and Midlands was "almost nine times per year than these areas typically get".

"It represents an almost unprecedented investment in local transport," he said.

"When I said we're going to do things differently and we're going to take that HS2 money and invest it in a way that makes more difference to people across the North, this is a really good example of that happening."

Rishi Sunak held a cabinet meeting in East Yorkshire on Monday

But, speaking to BBC Five Live, West Yorkshire's Labour Mayor Ms Brabin said: "Frankly these are just promises."

"There have been over 60 promises on transport infrastructure over the last decade or so. This money won't come to the regions until 2025," she added.

"Of course money is welcome and within this there is money for Bradford Station and for mass transit in West Yorkshire.

"But I just think the government are taking the public for fools. They don't really believe it's going to happen."

Ms Brabin added that West Yorkshire had "lost more bus routes than ever before".

'No new detail'

Meanwhile, Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and a leading advocate of HS2, was also critical of the prime minister.

Mr Murison accused the government of making a "reannouncement" on its pledges from October, when the north-western leg of HS2 was first scrapped.

He told BBC Radio Leeds: "If you're sitting in West Yorkshire, where we are really positive about the opportunity of Northern Powerhouse rail across the Pennines, there's no new detail on the delivery of that.

"I'd have liked to have heard more details about how we're going to get trains from Leeds and Bradford through to Liverpool, once they've got to Manchester."

Transport Secretary Mark Harper told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government was offering a "transformational" amount of money.

He said: "Rather than spending a third of the government's transport budget on a single rail line, we're actually spending it in more places to benefit people more quickly on the sorts of journeys that people take every day [...] and in parts of the North and the Midlands that were never going to benefit from HS2."

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