Mayor Dave Hodgson calls for residents to be put first

At a meeting of Full Council last night, Mayor Dave Hodgson presented an update on the Oxford-Cambridge Arc calling for the government to prioritise infrastructure for existing residents over building thousands of new homes. Mayor Dave said "The government have taken the local authorities and residents in the Arc for granted. We have met their high house building targets consistently and they have failed to provide any significant funding for infrastructure projects that would benefit existing residents. We have a proposed a number of projects that would improve transport links, traffic decongestion and health service provision, yet we have not seen any money to complete these schemes."

In his presentation, Mayor Dave highlighted the fact that the East of England region received almost half the national average funding from the latest round of Levelling Up funding. Bedford Borough Council placed several infrastructure bids including money for a Prebend Street relief road, a railway station in Wixams and a Levelling Up bid for Kempston - all were unsuccessful.

Mayor Dave continued "In the last 12 years we have built around 14,000 houses across the Borough to meet the government's targets. Yet in this time, we have only had 7.3km of new road built and a major train service removed. There has to be something from this growth that will benefit existing residents. We are a net contributor to the national economy, and we need the government to help with that infrastructure.

"Our residents are the people that actually have to deal with this growth and what's the benefit to them? It can't be worse journey times, it can't be more clogged up routes, it can't be longer waiting lists for health services, it can't be less houses for our NHS workers, our care workers, our refuse collectors and our other key workers. Those issues have to be addressed. We need infrastructure for our existing residents that considers green spaces for leisure and biodiversity, sustainable building regulations to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, and programmes to equip our workforce with the right skills for our transforming economy. Our residents demand better."