It has been reported by Insider that Transport Secretary Philip Hammond is “disappointed” with the number of bids submitted for transport projects to the Government’s £1.4bn Regional Growth Fund (RGF).
The RGF is a new 3 year fund that will operate across England to “stimulate private sector led sustainable economic growth and employment.”
The first round of bidding to the RGF ended on 21 January 2011 and 464 bids were received in total, with a combined value of £2.78bn.
The Government have said that the RGF will operate to “stimulate enterprise by providing support for projects and programmes with significant potential for creating long term private sector led economic growth”
Insider reported that “the Department for Transport has committed a ‘significant’ amount of its budget to the fund, but the number of bids for infrastructure schemes was not as high as Hammond had hoped for.”
Hammond reportedly said that “Our Regional Growth Fund will be used to support projects that have significant growth potential and create sustainable private sector employment in areas which have been heavily dependant on the public sector – and that will include transport projects.”
“But transport made a significant contribution to this fund and I had an ambition to see at least as much coming back to transport projects. I have to say on what I’ve seen so far, I’m slightly disappointed that we have not had more transport applications for the first round of the RGF.”
