North East Mayor announces new Metro line in ‘game changing’ £1.85 billion funding deal

National World - LocalTV

North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, today announced the first new Metro line for 30 years will be built as part of a £1.85bn funding deal agreed with the Government.

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00:00We've secured £1.85 billion worth of transport infrastructure money for the North East.

00:05That is incredible. It's more money than we've ever had to spend on transport.

00:08It means we can be really, really ambitious.

00:11This region has just been ignored for too long.

00:13We simply haven't had that investment and now we're getting it.

00:17And what that means is projects like the Metro Extension to Washington.

00:20Well, we've already started work on the preparation to get the Metro Extension underway to Washington.

00:27So that's really good news. And I'm really ambitious. I'm impatient.

00:31I want this to happen really quickly. And I know that that's how people feel as well.

00:34This is the first extension to the Metro in nearly 30 years.

00:37And so I want to see this delivered by 2033.

00:40People being able to get on the Metro and go to the fourth largest town in Britain

00:45that currently doesn't have access to a train, creating thousands of jobs and houses along the way.

00:49That's exactly the sort of ambition that we need in the region.

00:52And I'm really delighted that that's today what we're talking about.

00:54Well, we'll have a lot more to say about stations specifically,

00:58but this will be at least three new stations and will take us through to Follinsby Park.

01:02And so it closes that loop on the Metro to Washington.

01:05One of the most famous things that we have in our region is the Nissan plant at Washington.

01:10So this is a Metro line that will take people all the way down that route.

01:13And along that route, there is a huge opportunity for more manufacturing jobs.

01:17Only two weeks ago, we announced a thousand jobs at ASE, creating the new battery power of the future.

01:24And we've got ambition to do even more of that.

01:26As well as that, we know that we need to build housing.

01:29So this is great for the people of Washington.

01:31It's great for people who want to commute there for jobs that already exist.

01:34But this is also about creating new communities and new jobs that really help us to grow in the Northeast

01:40and give people the opportunity they really deserve.

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