Gateshead Flyover funding bids rejected 'numerous' times by Government, council leader says
by Daniel Holland, Austen Shakespeare · ChronicleLive“Numerous” efforts to secure funding for the Gateshead Flyover were rejected by past governments, a council leader has said.
Gateshead Council leader Martin Gannon said on Tuesday that his authority had been knocked back multiple times by the Department for Transport (DfT) in prior efforts to resolve the future of the flyover. The busy section of the A167 has been shut since last Friday, amid serious worries about the structural integrity of one of its concrete support pillars.
There has been talk of demolishing the flyover for more than 15 years but no proposals have come to fruition, ultimately leading to the travel crisis that has hit Tyneside over recent days. North East mayor Kim McGuinness called the closure of the flyover an example of “under-investment from a [Conservative] Government that simply didn’t prioritise our region over many, many years”.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service on Tuesday afternoon, following a Gateshead Council cabinet meeting where the flyover debacle was not discussed, Coun Gannon said he could not recall when the authority had last asked for funding from the DfT – but that it had been rejected on several occasions.
The long-serving Labour councillor said: "Historically, we knew there has been an issue there and there were numerous discussions with the Department for Transport, including applications for funding. I cannot remember when the last funding application was rejected but they have all been rejected. These discussions have been going with the previous government and there are discussions with the current government."
Plans had first been unveiled by the council in 2008 to replace the flyover with a tree-lined boulevard. Council papers show that there were plans in 2019 to bid for Government funding for an £18 million removal of the flyover, however the scheme was not awarded money from the Highway Maintenance Challenge Fund.
A £90 million “reconfiguration” of the road network in and around Gateshead town centre targeted for completion in 2030 is currently listed as part of an £8.7 billion North East Combined Authority (NECA) transport blueprint. But Ms McGuinness confirmed on Tuesday that NECA is not in possession of the funding to deliver that scheme at the moment.
She said: “I wish the silver bullet for this existed in the region, but I would say that about a whole host of transformational transport plans and other infrastructure plans we have got. Unfortunately that is not how it works and the Local Transport Plan, which we are still asking people to take part in the conversation and consultation about, lays this out as an aspiration for 2030.
“That funding identified is money we don’t yet have in the region. We are on a journey to having a single funding settlement, where we will have a lot more freedom over how we spend money in the region, but as it stands we are not able to unlock that money now because it is not in the region at the moment.”
The mayor added: “It is important to say that this is yet another example of the impact of 14 years of austerity, under-investment in the North, and under-investment from a Government that simply didn’t prioritise our region over many, many years. Now we are seeing the impact of that real time on that flyover.”
The Department for Transport said on Monday that it was “ready to work with the council to support them on their next steps."
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