My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Transport (Rosie Winterton) has made the following Ministerial Statement.

In July 2005, in a Written Statement to the House, local authorities were invited to bid for £18million of “pump-priming” development funding to bring forward packages of schemes that combined better local public transport with hard demand management measures, such as road pricing. In November 2005 and May 2006 my predecessors announced that we were awarding pump-priming for the transport innovation fund (TIF) to 10 areas.

In December 2007 we invited local authorities developing TIF proposals to bid for a small amount of remaining funding available in the current financial year. This funding was targeted at those areas that have formally submitted proposals and are providing further information to support the assessment by DfT and in parallel are developing elements of the proposal while waiting for a programme entry decision; or those that have submitted an outline proposal for a TIF package for which there is a political commitment to working up and submitting a business case during 2008-09.

I am today announcing funding for three areas. We are making up to £1 million available to Cambridgeshire, up to £1.5 million to Greater Manchester, and up to £675,000 to the West of England Partnership (covering Bristol City Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, North Somerset Council, and South Gloucestershire Council). This award means that these areas can continue to take forward proposals for improved public transport including local road pricing schemes.

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 and to support future decisions on the main transport innovation fund.

We will also work with other local authorities developing proposals for improved local transport and demand management and this decision does not affect their ability to bid for substantive TIF funding in the future.