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Transport Innovation Fund

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Douglas Alexander) has made the following Ministerial Statement. In a Written Statement to the House on28 November 2005, (Hansard, Commons; col.WS 2-4) the then Secretary of State for Transport announced that we were awarding pump-priming for the Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) to seven areas to develop packages of schemes that combined hard demand management measures, such as road pricing, with better public transport. In May 2006 we invited authorities to bid for the second round of pump-priming. I was greatly encouraged by the innovative thinking demonstrated in the 21 bids received. I am today announcing pump-priming funding for nine areas to develop schemes. We are awarding additional funding to six of the seven areas already in receipt of funds from the first round. They are: Cambridgeshire; Durham County Council (for Durham City); Greater Manchester; Shropshire County Council (for Shrewsbury); Tyne & Wear; and West Midlands conurbation. We are also awarding funding to three new areas. They are: Nottingham, Derby and Leicester and the surrounding counties; Reading; and Norfolk (for Norwich). The local authorities in all these areas will be developing proposals for packages of schemes. All of them are planning to look at local road pricing as part of their consideration of demand management options. This award means that 10 areas across England are giving serious consideration to local road pricing schemes. This work could lead to pilots which will help to inform discussion on a national road pricing scheme, providing experience on the ground and scaleable propositions in respect of the technology. I should be clear that receipt of this pump-priming funding is no guarantee that an authority will be successful in bidding for the main Transport Innovation Fund. We are, however, committed to working closely with the successful authorities to deliver the work programmes set out in their pump-priming bids, to support future decisions on the main Transport Innovation Fund and on road pricing more broadly. We will also work with other local authorities that have promising ideas for demand management and this decision does not affect their ability to bid for substantive TIF funding in the future