Shields Ferry landing approval among £208m plan
A funding package to save the Shields Ferry from being closed down has been finalised, as part of a £208 million transport upgrade programme for the North East.
The North East Combined Authority (NECA) signed off on Tuesday on an £8.2 million investment towards the building of a long-planned new landing for the ferry next to the North Shields Fish Quay.
There had been worries that, with previous funding having been lost and the existing north jetty deteriorating, the boat crossing was at risk of closure.
But the new landing is now among a list of schemes across the region due for completion by 2028, with the latest cash added to £4.6 million of unspent money reallocated from a completed project to dual the Tyne and Wear Metro tracks between Pelaw and South Shields.
North East mayor Kim McGuinness hailed the agreement of an initial £208 million investment programme, the first phase of a larger £800 million scheme in the next three years, at Tuesday’s NECA meeting in Sunderland.
It will also include:
£8.9 million towards the rollout of mobile and smart ticketing between Metro and local rail services; £2.1 million to install new security gatelines at Metro stations; £3.5 million worth of safety and accessibility improvements, including improved bus stops across the North East; 100km of better walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure – including a route from St Mary’s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay to Blyth, a new link between Washington and the Northern Spire bridge in Sunderland, improvements on the National Cycle Network between Jarrow and Hebburn’ and active travel upgrades in Gateshead to the MetroGreen development site; and £6.5 million to improve “sustainable access” across the river Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead. Ms McGuinness, however, said that the list did not come close to representing her full ambition to radically upgrade the region’s transport systems.
She said: “I want to see even more than this – both fixing the infrastructure we have got and building further on it.”
The mayor added: “The truth is that the North East transport network has not been good enough for too long and we have had to cope with temporary fixes, we are doing that at the moment, and a lack of investment.”
Ms McGuinness described a proposed restoration of the mothballed Leamside railway line, which is the centrepiece of her £8.3 billion transport vision, as the best investment proposition in the North of England.
There remains significant disappointment among regional leaders, though, over the loss of £50 million of funding which had been promised for County Durham but was recently pulled by the Department for Transport.
That decision marked the latest example of Labour ditching promises made under the previous Tory government, having accused their predecessors of leaving billions of pounds worth of unfunded commitments, along with schemes such as the dualling of the A1 in Northumberland.
Durham County Council leader Amanda Hopgood told Tuesday’s meeting that it was “extremely disappointing” to have lost that money, having had it promised after Durham’s entry into the North East devolution deal.
The Liberal Democrat councillor said: “That would have gone a long way in County Durham and regionally, with some huge project that won’t be able to take place now in the next couple of years from the loss of that money.”
Labour’s Martin Gannon, leader of Gateshead Council, agreed:“I know there are real challenges for the government. But ultimately this is an issue about equity and fairness. Durham County Council became part of the combined authority and we discussed with the previous government a settlement that was in line with the rest of the region. That is what the previous government committed to.”
Welcoming the new ferry landing cash, North Tyneside deputy mayor Carl Johnson claimed the local leaders would have “never” been able to make a successful business case to restore the ferry to use if it had been forced to shut down.