One of the most damaging consequences of the last 14 years has been the underinvestment by previous governments in our roads and public transport network. The consequences of that have hit hard in rural areas like ours. Bus services slashed, a train line that is crumbling and, despite the best efforts of the council, too many potholes on our roads.
Fixing the roads, delivering better buses for West Cumbria, securing investment to upgrade the Cumbrian Coast Line and tackling some of the issues currently causing delays and cancellations on our railway are key priorities of mine and I seek every chance I can to lobby ministers and officials.
We’ve seen some really positive announcements in recent weeks from the new government which mean we can start to address these longstanding issues.
On roads, an extra £500 million was allocated to councils for local road repairs in the Budget, which means we can fill more potholes and resurface more broken roads. And I met last week with National Highways to lobby for a multi-million pound project to improve safety on the A595 to be funded next year, which I’ll do my best to deliver.
We had a major announcement at the start of this week of £1 billion extra for bus services next year – including £5 million for Cumberland – which will protect existing routes and deliver new ones. This is a huge boost to back our buses and means we can be even more ambitious in our plans to connect more communities to the bus network in our area. Cumberland Council are doing great work on this already, with recent improvements and new services delivered. Phase two is being consulted on as we speak. This money means there can be a phase three to those plans and I’ll be working closely with Cllr Denise Rollo and the Labour leadership of the council to get maximum benefit for West Cumbria.
On rail, I’m pulling all the relevant local stakeholders together to update the business case for a major upgrade of the Cumbrian Coast Line so that we’re in the best possible position next year when funding decisions start being made. I stood up in the chamber last week to ask the Secretary of State to intervene to resolve the long-running Northern conductor dispute which the Tories did nothing to address. And I’ve met with Northern and Network Rail in Parliament in the past week to discuss improvements to the track and timetable.
Every week I go down to Westminster with you in mind and I fight for the things you tell me are important to you. We won’t win every fight, but I hope you know I will always do my best to deliver for West Cumbria.
Josh MacAlister MP 