Big projects on back burner but London backed
LONDON housing and transport projects got the chancellor’s blessing yesterday, though shovel-ready projects across the rest of the country were thin on the ground.
George Osborne said the government will help “develop proposals” for an extension to the Gospel Oak to Barking Line to reach Barking Riverside, a 11,000-home scheme, and support regeneration at Brent Cross in Barnet.
Several London authorities have applied to his £150m loan pot to improve housing estates, including the Aylesbury Estate, Blackwall Reach and Grahame Park, the chancellor said.
Outside of the capital, Osborne pledged £100m over five years to bolster Cambridge’s housing and transport upgrades.
Richard Threlfall, head of infrastructure at KPMG, said the Cambridge scheme was the “one bright spot” in a budget “disappointingly short on anything new on infrastructure”.
The Mersey Gateway toll bridge, announced in 2011 and part-funded by the Treasury, has been given a £270m guarantee to back its debt financing.
Local authorities across the country will have to compete for a £200m pot to fix potholes, while £140m is available to bankroll new flood defences.
Many of the Treasury’s 40 priority projects, including upgrades for the A14, nuclear power and airport capacity, remain snarled up in consultations, revisions and a lack of private funding.
“An opportunity remains for the government to get on the same page as institutional investors and funders before the general election, but there isn’t much from [the] announcement to suggest that this is going to be particularly high on the political agenda,” said John Hart, infrastructure partner at Pinsent Masons.
•COMPANY cars will get more expensive under tax hikes revealed yesterday. The levy on the most polluting company vehicles will rise by two percentage points a year until 2019, taking the rate to 37 per cent and raising an extra £720m for the public purse.