I was delighted this week to meet representatives of Nelson and Colne College in Westminster as one of their students, Sophie Ainsworth, won the Association of Colleges National Young Student of the Year award.
Sophie was recognised due to her achievements despite having to face and overcome adversity. She suffers from a complicated autoimmune condition called Lupus that makes life very difficult but was still able to get fantastic grades in her A-levels. She has now started a degree in English Literature at Durham University. Due to multiple votes in the House of Commons on Wednesday we only got to meet briefly, but it was great to meet her and congratulate her in person.
This week we also saw the publication of Transport for the North’s draft Strategic Plan, which is now open for public consultation. The Plan is looking for the best way to unlock the north’s economic potential, reckoned to be a £100 billion boost to the economy and 850,000 new jobs, thereby catching up with the rest of England.
That will not be achieved without better transport, however, that will not happen overnight. The Plan makes the case for investment in our road and rail network right through to 2050. I was pleased to see a focus on improving east-west connections and an acknowledgement that they are poor quality, having been ignored in the past for so long.
The Plan sets out how transforming the north’s transport would hugely benefit Pendle’s economy to the value of over £3,000 per person. To do this, we will need better connections to nearby cities, train lines and motorways. I have been strongly pushing SELRAP’s campaign to reopen our train line to Skipton and the draft Plan provides support for their argument with a prediction of four times as many rail journeys across the north in future.
I want to thank John Cridland and his team at Transport for the North for their impressive work, which comes out of the Government’s Northern Powerhouse Strategy. They will have my support in pushing for the investment our region needs to grow. From April, they will become the first ever Sub-National Transport Body, with recognises the unique need our whole country has to build the infrastructure our northern economy needs.