THE newly-published report which claims 89 per cent of transport cash has been going to London and the South East should not come as a great surprise to people in East Lancashire.

It reveals that transport spending in the North West equates to £99 per person while the equivalent figures for the South East and London are £714 and £2,596 respectively.

While it can be argued that the capital city has to have a much more complex infrastructure which is expensive to maintain, the same does not apply to the rest of the south of the country.

And what these figures show is that there isn’t so much a gap as a chasm.

Since the North West regional figure includes the metropolitan conurbations of Manchester and Merseyside, with their own metro systems, we should also assume that the East Lancashire spend will be below £99.

The £8million Todmorden Curve improvement linking Burnley with Manchester is to come into use next year.

But as council leaders point out, we still desperately need improvements in the speed, frequency and rolling stock on services linking the rest of our area to Manchester and the West Coast main line.