Tories back down over TIF

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Any Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) contracts signed prior to the election of a Conservative government would be respected, not dismantled, it was revealed this week.

While Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers said early on Monday that the TIF scheme would be dismantled, and the money redistributed, shadow transport minister Stephen Hammond later clarified that the Conservatives would only end TIF in 2013 at the earliest.

"TIF money is committed to 2014, but the £200M available from 2012-13 onwards we would take away," said Hammond. "We would not enforce congestion charging."

The Tories have committed themselves to Labour spending until 2012-2013. The £2bn TIF is currently only scheduled to run until 2014, with £1.8bn allocated to be spent by 2013. It is only the remaining £200M that the Tories are threatening to take away from congestion charging based schemes and offer to alternative local transport initiatives.

Hammond said that local areas who wanted to introduce congestion charging would be allowed to do so, "But there must be local validity," he said.

If Mancunians vote for their city's £2.8bn TIF scheme on December 11, it would receive half the money it needs from the government's £2bn TIF pot, the rest of the cash coming from congestion charging.

Manchester's bid is the front-runner for TIF money, with a second, smaller, scheme likely to be the joint Bristol/Bath scheme (News last week).

Hammond said both schemes would be safe. "The £2.8bn Manchester bid, half coming from government, would be money already committed. I cannot say we would reverse any future scheme [in the current round of TIF bids]. We are clear - we could not go back retrospectively."

Hammond said the £200M available from 2014 would: "Be available to schemes not reliant on a congestion charge. We do not know what is best for the local area – we will leave that to them," he said.