Council Leader, Cllr Liam Robinson, responds to today’s Comprehensive Spending Review announcement
Today’s announcement by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, setting out the Government’s spending priorities for the next few years, is good news for Liverpool.
Over the last year, Liverpool has already benefited from more than £75 million of Government funding to develop projects at Central Docks in Liverpool Waters, Great George Street in Chinatown and Festival Gardens.
The Comprehensive Spending Review lays the foundations for ambitious infrastructure projects which I know the city and the wider region will also benefit from.
Neighbourhoods
I’m delighted that Speke East has been announced as one of 25 trailblazer neighbourhoods that will receive up to £20 million over the next decade.
Focused around community-led regeneration and renewal, the area will receive long-term investment for communities and early support to prepare for investment from a dedicated team.
It is great that local communities will be asked for their involvement in the changes they want to see.
Housing
The Government has pledged £39 billion to delivering affordable homes across the UK.
In Liverpool, too much of our existing housing stock is not energy efficient, and much of it dates back to Victorian times.
We’ve pledged 8,000 new homes by 2027 and want to enable it through strong partnerships with the likes of Homes England, Registered Providers and the Combined Authority.
We’ve helped retrofit hundreds of homes in recent years but know there is far more to be done.
That’s why our next generation of housing needs to be greener and sustainable, using renewable energy, on brownfield sites whenever possible.
We want to innovate using modern construction methods which can slash the time needed for construction, helping us solve the housing crisis.
We have ambitions to go even further with another 10,000 homes over the next decade in North Liverpool and Bootle working with Sefton Council and the Combined Authority.
Public transport
It was welcome to hear the Chancellor announce that she will be revealing more in the coming weeks about plans to take forward Northern Powerhouse Rail, raising the prospect of improved journey times from Liverpool to Manchester and beyond. Anyone who uses this busy and often overcrowded route knows it currently takes up to an hour to travel just 35 miles. Whilst we await the details, it is promising that the Government is committed to this scheme, which has the potential to treble capacity and cut journey times to just over half an hour.
The Comprehensive Spending Review also includes £1.6 billion for the Combined Authority to improve public transport in the Liverpool City Region. Around 40 per cent of our city’s population don’t own a car, so an efficient and reliable public transport network is vital to ensuring residents can get to and from work, go to the shops and see friends and family.
The funding will support the introduction of a zero-emission bus fleet, new depot infrastructure, and the rollout of franchising which will see the return of buses to public control for the first time in nearly 40 years.
In addition, a rapid transit network of ‘glider’ routes between the city centre, John Lennon Airport and north Liverpool, including the new Bramley Moore stadium and Anfield, will link up communities through fast and frequent services.
For those travelling by train from Liverpool to other parts of the city region, work will now progress on three new railway stations – Carr Mill in St Helens, Woodchurch in Wirral, and Daresbury in Halton – alongside schemes at Liverpool Baltic and a redeveloped Runcorn station.
Science and technology
Our life sciences sector is hugely important in delivering high quality, well paid jobs and helping support graduate retention.
The Government has announced that Liverpool City Region will get at least £30 million to go towards building on our existing and growing expertise in the life sciences sector.
At the Council, we’re already working with partners on Paddington Village South, a site which is vital to our future economic growth and the city becoming one of Europe’s leading research and development centres for science innovation.
The funding commitment is a welcome boost to this important sector.
School meals
The rising cost of living has left many families in our city – where a third of households are classed as living in poverty – struggling.
Ensuring our children get at least one decent meal during the day is hugely important, and the expansion of free school meals to all families who receive Universal Credit from September 2026 is a massive boost. It will be worth around £500 per child, per year.
In Liverpool we are doing our bit by streamlining the process for those children entitled to free school meals. Auto-enrolling pupils will ensure that an additional 550 households benefit, and will also deliver a financial boost for schools who will receive at least an additional £1,000 per child in Pupil Premium payments.
Conclusion
Whilst we await further details of exactly how much Liverpool will receive for specific initiatives, I truly believe that the future looks brighter than it has for many years. We have a Government willing to work in partnership with Councils and Combined Authorities.
When combined with the Devolution Bill and the announcement that the Treasury has agreed to Mayor Steve Rotheram’s call for a relaxing of the rules on the ‘Green Book’ used to evaluate infrastructure spending to help areas outside of London and the south east, today has been a good day for our city.
