Luke Campbell has criticised the government’s “very disappointing” Spending Review, with the Hull and East Yorkshire Mayor calling on Downing Street to match the region’s ambitions.
On Wednesday, June 11, Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her highly-anticipated Spending Review which set out the government’s plan to “invest in Britain’s renewal.” Ms Reeves announced a plethora of spending commitments for sectors including health, security, and housing with total departmental budgets growing by 2.3 per cent across the Spending Review period.
Locally, the Spending Review included a number of commitments that impact Hull and the wider Humber Region including an up to £20 million investment in Orchard Park as the area was named in the list of twenty five ‘trailblazer neighbourhoods’ that are each set to receive funding to “foster community engagement and strengthen social cohesion.”
The Chancellor also announced support for the Humber Viking Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project, and national level commitments to other priority areas for Hull and East Yorkshire including affordable housing and AI.
Responding to the Spending Review, Mr Campbell said: “This is a very disappointing start, and we will be pressing the government to match our ambitions with much more support in future. As a new Combined Authority, we are developing exciting plans at pace for better transport connectivity within the region and with the rest of the UK. We now have shovel-ready schemes in place for some 5,000 new homes on brownfield sites. We’re backing two neighbouring areas’ AI Growth Zone bids as we start to create a major cluster of expertise including the University of Hull’s role as a UK leader in AI education.
“The government needs to back this area and reverse the last 14 years of underfunding and bad policies which have hit local people so hard. We must be a priority for local growth fund support – giving us a long-term settlement that gives us a level playing field and the same opportunities as city regions across the UK.”
Earlier this month, Ms Reeves announced over £15 billion of transport funding that was allocated to mayoral authorities in various parts of the country, which Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, described as “a watershed moment on our journey to improving transport across the North and Midlands,”. However, the Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority was not included in this announcement, with the region being made to wait for the full Spending Review to receive any much-needed transport funding.
The Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority will receive a multi-million pound four-year transport funding package – however, this is not expected to be at the same level as the allocations given to other, longer established, Combined Authorities earlier in the month.
Mr Campbell added: “We will be making the case for at least the same levels of funding awarded to other Combined Authorities in the Midlands and the North to give Hull and East Yorkshire the opportunities we deserve as a future business and industry powerhouse for the country.”
By: Andrew Spence, LDRS
