Announced by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, the 25 new local pinch point schemes will bring improvements to areas including Birmingham, Essex, Hampshire and Leicester, with many of the projects expected to be completed in 2014 and 2015. The latest announcement brings the total number of schemes to receive investment from the government’s Local Pinch Point Fund to 112.

In addition, as part of the government’s ‘commitment to supporting economic growth by tackling barriers on the local highway network that may be restricting the movement of goods and people’, a number of roads schemes are to see further action including:

• The M6 – Heysham Link Road, which is to receive nearly £111 million funding.
• The M55 near Bartle, Preston where a new junction road will be built to support the Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire city deal.
• The £64m A1 Lobley Hill to Dunston improvement scheme, announced in the Autumn Statement 2012, will be extended (subject to consideration of the business case).
• The M62 J19 near Rochdale will receive improvements, including the installation of new traffic lights, to facilitate a new link road between the M62 J19 and the A6045.

Patrick McLoughlin said: ‘Whether it’s unblocking bottlenecks on local roads, improving trouble spots on our motorways and trunk roads, or working to deliver better railways through electrification, these projects will benefit communities up and down the country and help keep Britain moving. By investing in our local and regional transport infrastructure we can help support new jobs and boost our overall competitiveness in the global economic race.’