Exclusive: Green light for £500m rail hub and help for rural motorists

After months of demands from politicians and local transport bosses, the Yorkshire Post understands the Department for Transport hopes to include the full Northern Hub package in its long-awaited works programme to be unveiled in Parliament next week, offering faster and more frequent rail services between the cities of the North.

The news comes as David Cameron throws his weight behind two key new measures outlined in the Yorkshire Post Give us a Fair Deal campaign, which marks its one-year anniversary today following 12 months of lobbying for more support for the region.

Writing in today’s Yorkshire Post, the Prime Minister makes clear he wants proposals for a fuel duty discount for people living in rural Yorkshire to progress “swiftly” to help those struggling with sky-high petrol prices in remote countryside communities.

He also gives his backing to a City Deal devolution package to Hull, following those announced in Leeds and Sheffield this week.

“Work is under way for rural Yorkshire to be made another pilot for the fuel discount, and I hope we will see plans progress swiftly,” the Prime Minister writes.

“The City Deal for Hull will support those now being finalised in Sheffield and Leeds.”

His words suggest further significant victories for the Give us a Fair Deal campaign, which was launched last July with the aim of closing the widening North/South divide.

An assessment of the past 12 months shows that of the 60-strong bank of ideas to support Yorkshire which this newspaper published last year, partial or total success can today be claimed in 20 of them.

Key victories have included Government agreement on a series of transport projects including high-speed rail, the halving of Humber Bridge tolls and the electrification of the trans-Pennine and Hope Valley railways, and major devolution packages for councils in the Leeds and Sheffield city regions.

Speaking last night, Deputy Prime Minister and Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg praised the campaign but warned that closing the North/South divide was “a generation’s work”.

“I want to pay tribute to the Yorkshire Post, because I think it has been a hugely successful campaign over the last year which has had a genuine effect on Government thinking,” Mr Clegg said.

Pledging that the Government’s work on closing the North/South divide has only just begun, he added: “This is a generation’s work.

“I don’t think one Government or one Parliament is enough time... We are only just starting on a journey to create a new Northern economy.”

Key to that vision will be the Northern Hub, a wide-ranging package of measures to improve the speed and frequency of rail services across the North of England, with studies showing it would deliver billions of pounds to the economy.

Barring any final opposition from the Treasury, its approval next week will be warmly welcomed by politicians and business leaders across the North.

But senior figures from across the region make clear there is still much work to be done, with the economy mired in recession.

Huge concerns remain about hot-spots of deprivation in cities such as Hull and Bradford, and of the hidden poverty which blights many rural areas.

Long-term youth unemployment is a mounting concern, while the region’s chronic shortage of affordable housing is reaching crisis point.

Figures also show that Yorkshire is still losing out to Scotland and London in a raft of areas, from Government grants through the discredited Barnett Formula to new institutions such as the Green Investment Bank.