Final £6m for Tyne Bridge repairs confirmed
BBCThe final £6m needed to complete the restoration of the Tyne Bridge has been confirmed by the government, after the chancellor put it on hold last year.
Funding had been announced by the previous Conservative government, but was subsequently placed under review by Labour after the 2024 general election.
The cash to finish the refurbishment in time for the crossing's centenary in October 2028 will be drawn from a wider £1.85bn government pledge announced on Tuesday.
Renovation work on the bridge, which carries traffic across the River Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead, has been ongoing since April 2024.
While the Department for Transport (DfT) provided an initial £35.2m towards the repair works, a further pledge was made by former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for an additional £6.2m to cover the full costs of upgrading the grade II* listed bridge and the Central Motorway.
That extra cash was placed under review by Labour and there had been serious worries among Tyneside leaders that it was at risk of being cut, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.
Politicians and business leaders from across the North East united in March this year to call on the government to hand over the promised funding, warning that a failure to do so would be a "spectacular own goal".
The frustration added to anger over the scrapping of plans to dual the A1 in Northumberland and the cutting of £50m in transport funding for County Durham, with the government arguing it had inherited £2.9bn of unfunded transport commitments from the Tories.
Labour ministers, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, had repeatedly refused to commit to delivering the cash needed to complete the Tyne Bridge repairs.
But on Wednesday the chancellor promised to provide £1.85bn to the North East Combined Authority in an allocation covering 2027 to 2032, a chunk of which will be used to extend the Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington.
North East Mayor Kim McGuinness said: "The record £1.85bn funding for transport we announced for the region this week includes £6.3m that will allow Newcastle City Council to complete the restoration of our iconic bridge in time for its centenary in 2028."
The council's deputy leader Alex Hay said the authority had "lobbied for years to secure this funding and stepped in with the council's own money to make sure the restoration could start when it needed to".
Gateshead Council leader Martin Gannon said the bridge was a "symbol of the whole of the North East so it's vital we get it back to its iconic best".