Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to increase active travel in (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East, (d) Newcastle, and (e) England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
On 12 February, the Department for Transport and Active Travel England (ATE) announced almost £300 million of funding to boost walking, wheeling and cycling with £222.5 million awarded to local authorities across England. This includes over £9.3 million of funding in 2024/25 to 2025/26 for the North- East Combined Authority (NECA). It will be for NECA to decide on priorities for investment across its local transport network.
ATE also funds a range of wider projects to enable more active travel, including Bikeability cycle training, Walk to School Outreach and Bike Bike Revival activities. ATE also provides funding to Sustrans to maintain and upgrade the National Cycle Network, which includes routes in the North-East.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department has taken to expand the number of cycle routes in (a) Hexham, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) North East and (e) England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Pursuant to my response to UIN 35411, the Department for Transport and Active Travel England (ATE) are working with local authorities to boost walking, wheeling and cycling across England.
It is for local authorities to decide on where to invest in their local transport networks. Funding awarded by ATE can be used by local authorities to improve the safety of existing infrastructure, deliver new active travel projects and for the development of walking and cycling networks. As part of the National Parks project, ATE is working with Northumberland National Park Authority to develop an active travel network plan.
In addition to funding, ATE provides training for local authority staff to enable the delivery of high-quality walking and cycling schemes, as well as design workshops and design assurance reviews of schemes under development. ATE is working closely with the North East Combined Authority to operate a Design Review Panel to improve the quality and safety of schemes within the region.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department has taken to improve the condition of cycle routes in (a) Hexham, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) North East and (e) England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Pursuant to my response to UIN 35411, the Department for Transport and Active Travel England (ATE) are working with local authorities to boost walking, wheeling and cycling across England.
It is for local authorities to decide on where to invest in their local transport networks. Funding awarded by ATE can be used by local authorities to improve the safety of existing infrastructure, deliver new active travel projects and for the development of walking and cycling networks. As part of the National Parks project, ATE is working with Northumberland National Park Authority to develop an active travel network plan.
In addition to funding, ATE provides training for local authority staff to enable the delivery of high-quality walking and cycling schemes, as well as design workshops and design assurance reviews of schemes under development. ATE is working closely with the North East Combined Authority to operate a Design Review Panel to improve the quality and safety of schemes within the region.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve the safety of cycle routes in (a) Hexham, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) North East and (e) England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Pursuant to my response to UIN 35411, the Department for Transport and Active Travel England (ATE) are working with local authorities to boost walking, wheeling and cycling across England.
It is for local authorities to decide on where to invest in their local transport networks. Funding awarded by ATE can be used by local authorities to improve the safety of existing infrastructure, deliver new active travel projects and for the development of walking and cycling networks. As part of the National Parks project, ATE is working with Northumberland National Park Authority to develop an active travel network plan.
In addition to funding, ATE provides training for local authority staff to enable the delivery of high-quality walking and cycling schemes, as well as design workshops and design assurance reviews of schemes under development. ATE is working closely with the North East Combined Authority to operate a Design Review Panel to improve the quality and safety of schemes within the region.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve the number of electric charging points in (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East, (d) Newcastle and (e) England.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to accelerating the roll-out of affordable charging infrastructure so that everyone, no matter where they live or work, can make the transition to an electric vehicle (EV). As of January 2025, the Government and Industry have supported the installation of 63,389 publicly available charging devices in England.
The Government’s £381 million Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund, which is expected to deliver over 100,000 public chargepoints, supports local authorities in England to work with industry and transform the availability of affordable, low-powered EV charging for drivers without off-street parking. The North-East Combined Authority, which includes Hexham constituency, Northumberland County Council and Newcastle City Council, was allocated £17.2m capital and resource funding through the Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund to increase the number of local public chargepoints across the area. In total, the broader North-East region has received over £22.4m capital and almost £2m resource funding under LEVI to improve regional charging infrastructure.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many bus routes were registered in (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) the North East and (d) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain only publish data on a Traffic Area wide basis. The North Eastern Traffic Area includes: the counties of Northumberland, County Durham, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire; the metropolitan boroughs within South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear; and the districts of North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire.
Between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 reporting years the Traffic Commissioner annual reports detail the following:
North East Traffic Area | ||
Reporting Year | Number of live registrations | Number of new registrations received |
2023/24 | 1831 | 239 |
2022/23 | 1967 | 429 |
2021/22 | 2477 | 436 |
2020/21 | 2770 | 324 |
2019/20 | 3559 | 381 |
England | ||
Reporting Year | Number of live registrations | Number of new registrations received |
2023/24 | 7321 | 1390 |
2022/23 | 8781 | 1648 |
2021/22 | 10941 | 1547 |
2020/21 | 12067 | 1145 |
2019/20 | 16323 | 1685 |
A new bus registration does not always mean a new bus route has been created. For example, a registration could have been cancelled and replaced with another registration that covers much of the same route, or the route continues to be served by different operator.
It should also be noted that prior to 2019-20 the total number of live local bus service registrations included an element of double-counting as services running across multiple local authority areas were recorded multiple times, e.g. a service running between Hexham and Newcastle was presented as two services when it should have been counted as a single service. This was rectified in the report for 2020/21.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding has been allocated to (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland and (c) the North East for filling pot holes since July 2024.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Northumberland County Council, which is a member of the North-East Combined Authority (NECA), is the local highway authority for Hexham. The Government has provided NECA with a City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS), which includes funding for local highway maintenance for its constituent authorities.
For the 2025/26 financial year, the Government is providing NECA with an extra £21.7 million for local highway maintenance: funding allocations can be found on gov.uk. It is up to NECA to allocate highway maintenance funding to its constituent members, including Northumberland County Council.
The Department advocates a risk-based whole life cycle asset management approach to local authority highways maintenance programmes. This considers all parts of the highway network, such as bridges, cycleways and lighting columns – not just the fixing of potholes. Funding is not ring-fenced, and it is entirely a matter for Northumberland County Council to determine how the money is best spent to improve its local highway network, according to local needs and circumstances.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding has been allocated to (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland and (c) the North East for road maintenance since July 2024.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Northumberland County Council, which is a member of the North-East Combined Authority (NECA), is the local highway authority for Hexham. The Government has provided NECA with a City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS), which includes funding for local highway maintenance for its constituent authorities.
For the 2025/26 financial year, the Government is providing NECA with an extra £21.7 million for local highway maintenance: funding allocations can be found on gov.uk. It is up to NECA to allocate highway maintenance funding to its constituent members, including Northumberland County Council.
The Department advocates a risk-based whole life cycle asset management approach to local authority highways maintenance programmes. This considers all parts of the highway network, such as bridges, cycleways and lighting columns – not just the fixing of potholes. Funding is not ring-fenced, and it is entirely a matter for Northumberland County Council to determine how the money is best spent to improve its local highway network, according to local needs and circumstances.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve the number of electric charging points in rural areas.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to accelerating the roll-out of affordable charging infrastructure so that everyone, no matter where they live or work, can make the transition to an electric vehicle (EV). As of February 2025, the Government and industry have supported the installation of 74,334 publicly available charging devices, up 35% on this time last year. There was particularly strong growth in rural areas in 2024, with chargepoint numbers increasing by 45%. Funding allocations for the £381m Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund, which aims to increase the number of local public chargepoints, factored in the proportion of residents in rural areas, meaning local authorities in rural areas were allocated additional funding compared to urban ones.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will publish the most recent data her Department holds on the number of road accidents classified as accidental deaths in (a) England, (b) the North East, (c) Northumberland by ward and (d) Hexham constituency.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Data on road injury collisions are reported by police using the STATS19 system. The number of personal injury road collisions in each of the areas requested in 2023 are shown in the table below.
Area | All collisions |
England | 96,771 |
North East England | 3,078 |
Northumberland | 430 |
Hexham constituency | 109 |
The number of collisions by ward is not routinely available. Mapping tools to view the distribution of individual collisions across Northumberland are available alongside the latest published statistical release on GOV.UK.
Data on which fatal collisions were classified as accidental does not fall under the remit of the Department for Transport and is recorded by coroners.