£50 million for Network Rail announced today to spend on rail stations. So how much will our share be? Zero. Ten stations have been earmarked for improvement, and nine of the ten are in Labour constituencies. We don’t even get a share of the £3.25 billion planned to be spent over the next five years.
What about the money for new Colleges? Earlier in the year we saw funding for further education colleges cut with just 13 getting the go ahead. All 13 were in Labour constituencies. Our new College was scrapped, one month before building was due to start.
Is it any better on road transport? £1.5 million has just been announced today to be spent improving road safety - a major issue locally. But this is money for roads overseas. Fenland Road Safety Campaign earlier this month submitted their petition to No 10 for funding for the Fen roads adjacent to waterways, but we were told no money was available.
Network Rail has £3.25 billion to improve 2,000 stations over the next 5 years, but none of these are in North East Cambridgeshire. Funding will improve Peterborough (so Labour ministers heading to their heartlands in the North East can have a smooth journey) and also in Cambridge (the south of the county again given priority) but none of our stations are included. There are no plans for example to extend the platforms at Whittlesey and Manea, or to link up Wisbech. Yet the Government wants more houses built here.
Taxpayers locally keep being short changed. Safety on local roads matters. Anything that reduces the loss of life from road traffic accidents is to be welcome in whatever country it is, but action overseas does not mean that no action at home is acceptable. Likewise a good train service from Cambridge & Peterborough is great news for our commuters to London -but they have to get to Cambridge or Peterborough in the first place. And scrapping our College will not help them have a job to go to in the first place.
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