London will receive £6 million through the Government’s Urban Congestion Performance Fund after exceeding targets to tackle congestion, Transport Minister Sadiq Khan announced today.
The money from the Department for Transport will be used to continue to help tackle urban congestion in the area. Total reward funding to date for London is now £13.5 million.
Sadiq Khan said:
“Congestion is bad for people, bad for business and bad for the environment - and more than 80 per cent of all our congestion is in urban areas. That is why we are investing up to £60 million of extra Government funding over four years to encourage local authorities in the 10 largest urban areas to tackle congestion.
"I am delighted to announce today that London is being rewarded for outperforming local congestion targets - giving road users in these areas faster, safer and more reliable journeys, benefiting the local economy.
"Across England we have now provided £43 million to the 10 areas to tackle urban congestion and more is available to those who continue to beat their targets."
London is one of 10 urban areas across the UK sharing a total of £19.7 million for beating congestion targets. The other areas are Nottingham, Leicester, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Tyne & Wear, Merseyside, West of England, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.
The £60 million Urban Congestion Performance Fund has been set to help England’s 10 largest urban areas identify and tackle the causes of congestion on the major routes in their areas. Further funds will be available next year provided the areas continue to exceed their target performance.
The latest awards follow the publication of statistics this month that showed that congestion had fallen by an average of 5.5 per cent across the 10 largest urban areas between the baseline (a mixture of 2004-05 and 2005-06 data) and 2008-09.
