| Transport key to competitiveness gap |
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| Written by Adrie van der Luijt | |
| Wednesday, 02 April 2008 | |
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Transport investment must be top of the agenda if UK cities want to compete with European rivals.
The key to change is the reform of the UK's local government public transport provision model, according to a new report by business and public sector adviser Grant Thornton and Glasgow University. Key findings of the report include:
The report draws on a wide range of transport infrastructure research in the UK and Europe over a ten year period. It points to the fact that although current government policy recognises the importance transport to the economy, investment in transport infrastructure in the UK had averaged approximately 40 per cent less as a proportion of GDP over the last 40 years than its key competitor countries in Europe. The resulting 'transport gap' was directly affecting the liveability of regional centres such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds, damaging the ability of these cities to attract skilled workers and private investment. Increased journey times caused by congestion also impeded productivity and consumption opportunities for residents, further inhibiting economic expansion. Will McWilliams, partner with Grant Thornton government and infrastructure advisory, said the report highlighted the economic urgency of transport investment. "The major growth sectors of our regional cities are predicted to be finance, business services, ICT, and research and development activity, areas that are nearly three times more geographically concentrated than manufacturing activities, meaning regional economic health will increasingly depend upon quality transport links to deliver talented people to these growth industries," McWilliams added. The structure of the 40-year-old Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) and Passenger Transport Executive (PTE) systems in local government transport planning was also called into question by the report, as these are based around historic boundaries and do not take into full account a wider commuter system, or the complexity of present-day governance arrangements in UK cities. While the report urges both local and central government to find the political will to improve transport investment, it also points out the critical need for residents and businesses in these regional centres to accept the need for new revenue streams to fund the necessary investment. Dr Iain Docherty, Senior Lecturer at Glasgow University, who led on the report, said revenue streams such as sales and payroll taxes have been used successfully in many European cities to underwrite investment in major transport capital projects. The size of these potential streams in the UK means that they could be used to finance significant borrowing for improved transport links if a more long term view of economic development was taken. "If central government is willing to transfer a small measure of financial powers to the city regions, then a number of potential funding mechanisms already in play from Strasbourg to Seville could be readily introduced to fast track transport projects," Docherty added. The report outlined several successful models from around Europe that could be regionalised by local transport authorities without a huge degree of difficulty. Docherty said the UK had for too long relied on the assumption that the bare minimum of transport investment would be enough to get by. He explained that transport investment in itself cannot guarantee economic success, but said that recent evidence suggested that it was increasingly difficult to build sustainable economic growth without it. “Above all, we need to deliver the transport infrastructure and services the market needs to maintain confidence in the UK as a place to invest and grow businesses in the future,” Docherty concluded. Related articles
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