McMahon and Greater Manchester APPG call for ‘levelling up’

Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon

The Greater Manchester All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) has sent a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak outlining a number of improvements that the Group would like to see for the city-region included in Wednesday's budget.

The letter, entitled Budget Submission 2020 – Greater Manchester APPG, and signed by 15 of GM’s MPs, includes calls for long-term devolved funding to Greater Manchester in order to invest in infrastructure for growth, investment in buses and cycling and walking infrastructure, support for intra-city transport to reduce carbon emissions, investment to support service reform, increase spending on research and development, and a call for ensuring Greater Manchester’s skills and work programme meets the needs of employers and helps people reach their potential.

On top of those suggestions, there is also a call for government to support opportunities to improve the connectivity of the city-region, by exploring the feasibility of an orbital Metrolink extension from Rochdale to Oldham and onwards to Ashton-under-Lyne.

Commenting on this inclusion, Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon, the Vice Chair of the APPG, said “I’m really pleased that this call for a feasibility study has been included in this letter.

"I am confident that this potential extension would be a good move for the city-region and would start the process of levelling-up connectivity across Greater Manchester.

“Increasing connectivity in our city-region is absolutely key to making it a better place and making sure that constituents in towns like ours aren’t cut off from key employment sites across the city-region.

“At the moment the tram is great to get into the city centre, but it’s not good at moving people from borough-to-borough.

"If we’re going to be serious about the climate emergency we need to enable people to travel around all of Greater Manchester, whether it be for work or for pleasure, without using a car.”

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