Letters, November 16: Commons hurdle for regions’ transport boost

From: Mr R Hanson, Swallow Lane, Golcar, Huddersfield.

From: Mr R Hanson, Swallow Lane, Golcar, Huddersfield.

ALL the talk about elected mayors for city regions in order to attract money for transport infrastructure on the scale of London and the South East 
will not come to anything unless something else happens.

Major improvements, or large-scale new infrastructure, will still require a Bill to be passed in Parliament to allow these to take place and have a chance of receiving funding.

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The eight current city regions in England have 27 per cent of the UK population and London and the South East have 22.7 per cent, so presumably the city regions have a larger number of MPs representing them.

This means that if all the MPs of the city regions vote as one, they should be able to stop more of the money available going to London and the South East.

However, this would require the disgruntled MPs outside the city regions being persuaded to vote with them to guarantee a majority to acquire investment for any of these regions.

Unless they do, London will get a second Crossrail scheme and promised rail improvements here will have little chance of being implemented.