England’s Economic Heartland (EHH), one of seven sub-national transport bodies in England, has published its business plan for the next three years.
The plan set outs how EEH, from 2022/23, will expand its remit from setting the strategy and identifying investment priorities for the region, to playing a more proactive role in progressing cases for individual schemes and supporting local authorities with their own projects.
EEH is a partnership of councils and local enterprise partnerships, stretching from Swindon and Oxfordshire in the west to Cambridgeshire in the east, and from Northamptonshire down to Hertfordshire
Nearly £1m in funding from the UK Department for Transport will be allocated by EEH to supporting the development of strategic outline business cases by 2025 when the plan concludes.
At the same time, during 2022 EEH will develop a proof of concept for a centre of excellence designed support local authorities on early scheme developments.
Following the trial, EEH will look to secure additional funding to realise the proposal for a centre of excellence in full.
Work priorities set out in the plan include helping to realise an integrated transport system, trialling new solutions within the region, producing a regional investment pipeline, upgrading and making accessible its evidence base, and promoting localised, place-based approaches to planning connectivity and cutting emissions.
EEH chair Richard Wenham said: “For the first time, EEH is able to produce a plan for the longer term thanks to the confidence the Department of Transport has placed in us by indicating its level of funding over the next three years.
“Our core values will remain just as true over the next three years as at the time of our inception in 2015.
“We will continue to be collaborative and transparent; ambitious and evidence led; and operating at a scale which provides tangible benefit for the region.”
EEH has also published its annual report for 2021-2022, which, alongside progress on work being carried out by the body, significant organisational changes made over the last year.
