To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to the written ministerial statement of 18 December 2006, Official Report, column 132-3WS, on the Local Transport Capital Settlement 2007-08, whether the funding of £3 billion to improve local transport outside London is included in the total of £8 billion over the five years of the local transport plan period; and whether (a) that £3 billion and (b) any part of it had previously been announced. (114951)

The £3 billion funding announced in the written ministerial statement of 18 December 2006 is part of the total planned investment of £8 billion over the five years of the local transport plan period (2006-07 to 2010-11). The £3 billion is composed of integrated transport allocations for the four years from 2007-08 to 2010-11 and maintenance allocations for 2007-08.

These allocations for individual local transport plan areas of the £3 billion have not been announced before. However, planning guidelines distributing most of the integrated transport and maintenance funding to local transport plan areas on an indicative basis had been published previously in order to allow councils to formulate effective and realistic transport strategies.

The Department for Transport's guidance on local transport plans (dated December 2004 and published on the DfT website) pointed out that the eventual allocations for individual local transport plans would be adjusted for performance and so might differ significantly from these indicative planning guidelines. The guidance, however, indicated an intention (now delivered) that each plan area would receive at least three quarters of its planning guidelines.