Latest news with #GrowthCorridor
The Irish Sun
a day ago
- Business
- The Irish Sun
New £5billion train line to connect two of the UK's most beautiful cities
A NEW £5billion train line is set to connect two of the UK's most beautiful cities. The government have confirmed a £2.5 billion cash injection into continuing to deliver the plan. Advertisement 2 A new £5billion train line is set to connect two of the UK's most beautiful cities 2 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has confirmed a further £2.5 billion in funding for East West Rail Chancellor Rachel Reeves has confirmed a further £2.5 billion in funding for East West Rail (EWR), the major infrastructure project to establish a railway link between Oxford and Cambridge. She announced the investment in her Speaking in the House of Commons Reeves said: 'I have heard representations from my honourable friends from Milton Keynes North, Milton Keynes Central and Buckingham and Bletchley. "And I can tell the House today to connect Oxford and Cambridge and to back Milton Keynes' leading tech sector I am providing a further £2.5 billion for the continued delivery of East West Rail.' Advertisement Travel News The funding is part of a broad vision to develop the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor. A government policy paper released alongside the Chancellor's speech described a 'renewed focus' on driving growth in the area. It also confirmed that EWR remains central to that ambition, supporting not only economic development but also enabling large-scale housing growth reports Reeves reiterated the government's commitment to creating 1.5 million new homes and emphasised that new transport links like EWR would help unlock sites for housing and employment along the route. Advertisement Most read in News Travel Exclusive Exclusive Councillor Judy Roberts, cabinet member for Place, Environment and Climate Action on Oxfordshire County Council, said: 'We welcome the continued commitment from the government to progress East West Rail through to Cambridge," reported Watch shock moment car get trapped on railway crossing before train speeds through She added: "Which builds on previous budget commitments and delivery of the route between Oxford and Milton Keynes, expected to open soon following current train testing. "East West Rail effectively provides a 'backbone' for developing a wider regional integrated sustainable transport network. Advertisement "And it will be important that Oxfordshire works with those on the scheme to provide high-quality first mile/last mile connectivity from key stations along the route. 'It will also be important to maximise the benefits of development for East West Rail through delivering economic, social and environmental benefits, as well as onward rail connections, for example to Swindon and Bristol. What is the East West Rail First conceived more than 20 years ago, the EWR project aims to establish a direct rail link between Oxford and Cambridge. The full scheme is expected to cost at least £5 billion and includes both upgrades to existing infrastructure and construction of new lines. The project is divided into four key segments: Upgrading the rail between Oxford and Bicester (completed in 2016). Restoring a disused line between Bicester and Bletchley (opening later this year). Refurbishing the existing route from Bletchley to Bedford (to be completed by 2030). Building a brand new stretch of railway from Bedford to Cambridge (still in planning stage). The line, once completed, will make it possible to travel from Oxford or Cambridge to most of the north of England without having to go through London. 'This includes delivery of a fully decarbonised passenger and freight railway at the next stage of development, with supporting investment in electrification infrastructure and high-quality new trains, including for use between Oxford and Milton Keynes.' Calum Miller, MP for Bicester and Woodstock, also supported the plans and said: 'I welcome the Government's confirmation in the next phase of the East West Rail project. Advertisement 'It's crucial that East West Rail deliver the funding to keep London Road open and I will continue pressing the company and Rail Ministers to commit to an underpass for all modes of light transport.' Other announcements made in the spending review included a further £3.5 billion towards improving the TransPennine rail route that links York, Leeds and Manchester.
Express Tribune
30-01-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
UK backs third Heathrow runway in growth takeoff bid
LONDON: Britain's Labour government on Wednesday backed building a third runway at London's busy Heathrow airport, with finance minister Rachel Reeves saying it would help grow the economy while respecting climate goals. "I can confirm today that this government supports a third runway at Heathrow and is inviting proposals to be brought forward by the summer," Reeves said in a speech, adding a new airstrip "would unlock growth". Despite opposition from environmentalists, the London mayor and some Labour MPs, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is determined to deliver major infrastructure projects to grow a UK economy that has struggled to take off since the party came to power in July. Writing in The Times newspaper, Starmer said the government would "kick down the barriers to building, clear out the regulatory weeds and allow a new era of British growth to bloom". Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport by passenger numbers, welcomed a record 83.9 million travellers last year with the global aviation sector having recovered from the turbulent Covid years. "A third runway and the infrastructure that comes with it would unlock billions of pounds of private money to stimulate the UK supply chain during construction," Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said. Following years of legal wrangling, Britain's Supreme Court ruled at the end of 2020 that Heathrow could build a third runway, overturning a legal decision to block construction on environmental grounds. While the Conservative government at the time said building work could begin in 2022, the project has been delayed by further obstacles and upheaval created by the coronavirus pandemic. Building a new runway was priced at £14 billion a decade ago -- a sum estimated to have soared to tens of billions of pounds (dollars) with the inflation since. "We will work with a private sector to deliver the infrastructure that our country desperately needs," Reeves added during her speech in Oxfordshire, north west of London. Vowing to go "further and faster" to kickstart the economy, she also unveiled plans to deliver a Growth Corridor between the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge. The scheme providing improved transport links and affordable housing has the potential to be Europe's Silicon Valley, the government said. Reeves said the government would "ensure that a third runway is delivered in line with our legal, environmental and climate objectives". Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who has previously opposed a third runway at Heathrow over environmental concerns, this week insisted that a new airstrip must not impact the UK government's goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. London's mayor Sadiq Khan said he remained "opposed to a new runway... because of the severe impact it will have on noise, air pollution and meeting our climate change targets". The Labour mayor added he was not convinced "that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without a hugely damaging impact on our environment". Rosie Downes, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said "allowing developers to bulldoze their way through crucial nature protections and safeguards will further diminish our seriously under-threat wildlife and natural environment". The government is shortly expected to back expansion at two other airports serving the capital -- Gatwick and Luton -- having recently approved upgrades to London's Stansted and City airports. Britain's economy has stagnated in the almost seven months since the party ended 14 years of rule by the Conservatives in a landslide election victory. Opposition lawmakers and some analysts have blamed the lack of growth on a decision by Reeves in her inaugural budget to hike taxes.
BBC News
29-01-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Could Racheal Reeves' new reforms boost growth?
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday that "economic growth is the number one mission of this government" as she unveiled a series of proposals to boost the UK's economy. But how quickly could the government get growth from the plans she announced?Critics have argued some of the projects - such as expanding Heathrow - would not help in the near Verify has examined some of the key numbers and claims. How slow is the UK's growth? The most recent official data shows there was virtually no growth in GDP - the overall size of the UK economy - between the July 2024 election and November 2024. And the latest medium term official growth forecast from the Office for Budget Responsiblity, the government's official forecaster, is for 1.6% GDP growth in 2029, which would be well below the pre-2008 financial crisis average growth of 2.8% a the International Monetary Fund has forecast that the UK's growth rate for 2025 and 2026 will be higher than in France and rates of GDP growth would translate into slower growth in our wages and incomes and general living standards. Heathrow expansion The chancellor said that allowing Heathrow to build a third runway would "create 100,000 jobs", boost investment and exports and "unlock futher growth".She cited a new report by the consultancy Frontier Economics which found it could increase the UK's potential GDP by 2050 by 0.43%, around £ is broadly in line with the findings of an independent commission by Sir Howard Davies in 2015, which concluded a third runway at Heathrow would support UK trade and enhance productivity and push up GDP by 0.65-0.75% by 2050 relative to most analysts believe it would likely take many years before shovels went into the ground to start building a new runway, even with new reforms to speed up the planning the government will have a difficult balancing act to both expand Heathrow and meet its climate Verify asked the Treasury for its source for the 100,000 jobs figure and it pointed to a 2017 report by the Department for Transport estimating that a new runway at Heathrow could add between 57,000 and 114,000 additional local jobs. Though that report added that "these jobs are not additional at the national level, as some jobs may have been displaced from other airports or other sectors." Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor The chancellor in her speech claimed an Oxford and Cambridge Growth Corridor "could add up to £78bn to the UK economy by 2035".This corridor is a resurrection of the previous government's plans to join Oxford and Cambridge with new transport links and allow those two university and research hubs to support of the chancellor's figure, the Treasury has cited research by an industry group called the Oxford-Cambridge research shows that this £78bn is a "cumulative figure" over 10 years, not the boost in a given analysis suggests the project could add £25bn in Gross Value Added (GVA) a year to the UK economy by would constitute roughly a permanent 1% boost to UK GDP by that date. Estimates of the impacts of an infrastructure project on growth are inherently uncertain and very sensitive to the assumptions of researchers about what would have happened to growth if it had never been most economists do believe infrastructure projects, especially those that allow already productive places to expand, will ultimately help the UK economy grow more rapidly than Caswell, a senior economist at The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr), said: "Big infrastructure projects typically deliver growth over the long term, approximately 10 to 20 years." "There may be a small demand side boost in the short term when shovels are in the ground, but nothing so significant that you would see it in headline GDP growth figures."However, after the project is complete, the supply capacity of the economy is permanently enhanced, and, all other things equal, that delivers higher sustained GDP growth than would have otherwise been." Pensions reform Another reform the chancellor says will be pro-growth is enabling UK companies to access the funds from their "defined benefit pension" pots, held on behalf of their workforces to fund their benefit pension schemes guarantee an annual pension payment to retired workers, based on their salary while they were in of these defined benefit pension pots have moved into surplus in recent years due to the rise in interest rates since the pandemic, meaning their financial assets (their investments) are greater than their financial liabilities (what they have to pay out to pensioners).The Treasury has said that approximately 75% of schemes are now in surplus and that the total surplus adds up to £ chancellor wants to legislate to allow the firms to use these funds to invest, while keeping safeguards to protect and guarantee workers' pension shake-up plan aims to boost growthWhat's the plan for a third runway at Heathrow Airport?At a glance: What was in Rachel Reeves's speech?Measuring the size of the surplus of defined benefit scheme depends on various complex assumptions about the scheme and its relationship to the official Pension Regulator estimates that on one measurement the size in September 2024 was £207bn, but £137bn on a different Treasury's estimate is roughly midway between the such sums were deployed that could, in theory, make a positive difference to overall UK business investment, which is regarded by economists as both a short term and a long term driver of GDP business investment in 2023, according to official data, was £ the size of any boost from this pension reform would depend on companies being willing to invest their surpluses, which is subject to great uncertainty as many firms have been looking to offload their defined benefit pension schemes to insurance companies in recent years. What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Oxbridge growth corridor 'to add £78bn to economy'
Proposals to link up Oxford and Cambridge will add up to £78bn to the UK economy by 2035, the chancellor has claimed. Connecting the university cities could create "Europe's Silicon Valley", Rachel Reeves said in her speech in Oxfordshire. The government wants thousands of homes and better transport links to be developed in the area between the cities. The chancellor also supported the construction of Abingdon Reservoir, though the 4.5 sq-mile (7sq km) project continues to be met with strong local opposition. Speaking at Siemens Healthineers in Eynsham the chancellor said the two university cities "offer huge economic potential for our nation's growth prospects". "Just 66 miles apart, these cities are home to two of the best universities in the world, two of the most intensive innovation clusters in the world, and the area is a hub for globally renowned science and technology firms in life sciences, manufacturing, and AI. "It has the potential to be Europe's Silicon Valley. The home of British innovation. "To grow, these world-class companies need world-class talent who should be able to get to work quickly and find somewhere to live in the local area. "But to get from Oxford to Cambridge by train takes two-and-a-half hours. "Oxford and Cambridge are two of the least affordable cities in the UK. In other words, the demand is there but there are far too many supply side constraints on economic growth in the region." The announcements include: Nine new reservoirs, such as Fens Reservoir serving Cambridge and the Abingdon Reservoir Funding for East-West Rail, with new services between Oxford and Milton Keynes The development of new and expanded communities in the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor A new Growth Commission for Oxford Appointment of Sir Patrick Vallance as Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor champion to ensure the Government's ambitions are delivered Reacting to the speech, Susan Brown, leader of Oxford City Council, said the newly-announced Growth Commission would bring together central government, local authorities, businesses and universities to "tackle the barriers to economic growth". She added it would help the city "realise its full potential" and create secure "well-paid jobs for our children and grandchildren". Professor Alistair Fitt, chair of Arc Universities Group and vice chancellor at Oxford Brookes University, said the region "hosts a great diversity and scale of universities". "Together we offer a wide range of key contributions: globally renowned research brilliance, the powerhouse of skills provision provided by cutting edge teaching, world-class knowledge transfer and commercialisation," he said. In a joint statement Oxfordshire's MPs, Liberal Democrats Layla Moran, Olly Glover, Charlie Maynard, Freddie van Mierlo and Calum Miller said they were "pleased to hear the government's ambition to unleash our county's potential". "But growth needs to come along with huge investment in critical infrastructure," they added. "We need urgent action to fix our crumbling sewage system, support already overstretched GP and dentistry services, improve the electricity grid, and boost the active travel and rail network. "So we're pleased to see the government's commitment to East West Rail, but there is much further to go." Lisa Warne, director of CPRE Oxfordshire, said the countryside charity had "grave concerns about Labour's growth agenda, whether this is growth in housing, wind farms or reservoirs". While she welcomed plans for affordable homes and renewable energy, she said it could not be "at the expense of the countryside" and urged the government to build on brownfield sites. She called the announcement "nothing but a rehash of old policies". But Derek Stork, the chair of the Group against Reservoir Development, said the reservoir plans included in the announcement would be a "diversion of resources". "What we need is infrastructure fixing our leakages, and we need infrastructure to fix the sewage pollution that companies like Thames Water are dumping in our rivers." Sally Povolotsky, a district councillor who represents Steventon and the Hanneys, said the government was "ignoring the thousands of voices" who had taken part in a consultation. "This is just absolute insanity that the government can come along and kibosh everyone's rights to be able to speak and have their voice heard." Thames Water welcomed the government's plans which it said would secure the water supply for 15m people. "It will also enable us to meet the challenges ahead, such as a growing population and the effects of climate change. "We've also committed to halving leakage by 2050 and reducing demand for water." it added. Rachel Reeves announced the plans alongside a series of other major infrastructure projects, including plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Bethan Nimmo, BBC Oxford political reporter, said the announcement could mean "a real boost for jobs and prosperity". "The pressure is on to build more homes - and build them faster - as well as lab spaces and offices for the kind of companies that will drive this growth." "At the same time, many will look at all the green fields in Oxfordshire and wonder how many of those will make it to the other side of this kind of growth boom," she added. You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Reeves expected to back Heathrow expansion plans Oxford-Cambridge arc has 'failed' - campaign group Step forward in plans to build new reservoir Reservoir plans spark 'disgust' among councillors
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What do government plans mean for Cambridge?
The chancellor has unveiled plans to deliver the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, claiming it will boost the UK economy by up to £78bn. Rachel Reeves said the area has "the potential to be Europe's Silicon Valley", but a lack of affordable housing, no direct train service between the university cities and a lack of water supply in one of the driest regions in the country had held this back. "To grow, these world-class companies need world-class talent who should be able to get to work quickly and find somewhere to live in the local area," she said. So, what has been confirmed for the Cambridge area? The Environment Agency has lifted its objections to developments around Cambridge, delivering 4,500 homes, plus associated facilities such as schools, as well as office and laboratory space in the city centre at the Beehive Centre The government will let water companies unlock £7.9bn in investment to build new reservoirs, including a new Fens Reservoir to serve Cambridge Funding has been confirmed for transport projects, including the East West Rail, and an upgrade on the A428 between Milton Keynes and Cambridge The new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will be prioritised Support has been confirmed for a new East Coast Mainline station at Tempsford, Bedfordshire The government has backed the University of Cambridge's plans to build a large scale innovation hub in the city centre Ms Reeves said: "Oxford and Cambridge offer huge economic potential for our nation's growth prospects. "Just 66 miles apart, these cities are home to two of the best universities in the world, two of the most intensive innovation clusters in the world and the area is a hub for globally renowned science and technology firms in life sciences, manufacturing, and AI. "To grow, these world-class companies need world-class talent who should be able to get to work quickly and find somewhere to live in the local area. But to get from Oxford to Cambridge by train takes two and a half hours. "Oxford and Cambridge are two of the least affordable cities in the UK. In other words, the demand is there but there are far too many supply side constraints on economic growth in the region." To help meet the government's aims, Science Minister Lord Patrick Vallance has been appointed as the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor Champion. He said: "The UK has all the ingredients to replicate the success of Silicon Valley or the Boston Cluster, but for too long has been constrained by short termism and a lack of direction. "I look forward to working with local leaders to fulfil the Oxford-Cambridge corridor's potential by building on its existing strengths in academia, life sciences, semiconductors, AI and green technology amongst others." The government keeps saying its main mission is to grow the economy. Now the chancellor has made it very clear that she wants this region to be at the forefront of that mission. Never before have there been so many local announcements in one speech: airport expansion, road improvements, new homes, a station even a reservoir. For years the business community has been telling governments the region has significant potential, if only it was given the support that it needed to grow. Rachel Reeves has listened and now expects the region to deliver. A lot of these ideas are not new. Public opposition and a lack of confidence by investors meant they have not became reality. The chancellor wants it to be different this time by driving the changes through the planning system with limited time for consultation. There will be opposition to some of this, there will be legal battles - it may not all succeed and it will certainly take time. But if it does happen, the look of this region and the way people view this region will change considerably. Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Council opposes six track plan for East West Rail Oxford-Cambridge region should be science 'jewel' 'Most don't know what the Oxford-Cambridge arc is'
