North East Mayor Kim McGuinness announces more than £8million to draw up business case for reopening of the Leamside Line.

The northern section of the disused route would be used to create the new extension to the Metro – known locally as the ‘Washington Metro Loop’'.

Transcript

00:00North East May, Kim McGuinness, couple of months on the job, how's it going?

00:03It's going really really well, I was at Downing Street yesterday with the new Prime Minister

00:07who has made it very clear that mayors are a key part of delivery and we've wasted no

00:12time getting going here in the North East either. Obviously day one I started the process

00:16of bringing buses back under public control, we're underway with our plans to tackle child

00:21poverty and now it's a case of getting on and making sure that right across our region

00:26people are feeling the benefit.

00:28I remember talking to you just after you were elected and bringing the Metro to Washington

00:31was a big part of the pledge, what are we doing today?

00:34Well today we are announcing the business case for that route into Washington on the

00:39Metro, the Metro extension Leamside North. We'll be putting £8.6 million into that business

00:44case which will allow us to get all of the information that we need while we raise the

00:49cash to do that Metro extension. So it's really really exciting, this is a clear sign of our

00:54absolute intent to extend the Metro down into Washington.

01:00Councillor Martin Gannon is the Combined Authority's lead on transport, how big is this?

01:05Well in terms of potential economic impact for the North East of England, it's huge,

01:12there's no bigger infrastructure project for the North East of England, bigger than the

01:20reopening of the Leamside line. This initial Leamside North which will join Washington,

01:28the fourth biggest town in the UK without a rail link, joining Washington to the Metro

01:35system and then back across the Victoria Viaduct through South Hilton, connecting all that

01:41area into the Metro system is absolutely enormous, huge economic impact. We're not allowed to

01:49use phrases like levelling up nowadays, however in terms of positive economic impact, radically

01:56changing people's lives for the better, nothing is more important than this project.