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New fund is nothing more than a sticking plaster over the gaping hole in previous support for sustainable transport – Maria Eagle
7 February 2012
Maria Eagle MP, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, responding to today's announcement on transport funding, said:
"The Government is completely out of touch with what is happening to local bus services and support for cycling if it thinks this new fund will be anything more than a sticking plaster over the gaping hole that has been left by the decision to cut local transport funding too far and too fast.
"It takes some nerve for Norman Baker to claim to be enhancing access to employment when the devastating cuts to local bus services that he has presided over have made it harder for young people to stay on in education and training, look for work or take up new opportunities.
"Yet again Transport Ministers are in a complete muddle over their approach to localism. They made a big deal of cutting the number of central transport funds to just four, a decision Labour supported. Yet this is now the second new fund created in as many months. The Government needs to decide if it genuinely believes in local communities setting their own priorities or is more interested in the headlines it hopes to get by occasionally restoring tiny fractions of the money they have already cut."
