Northern England and the Midlands are the big winners in a plan to reduce bottlenecks on motorways and strategic routes to support job creation and housebuilding schemes.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced £170M for highways, divided between 57 schemes, in his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Monday. The economic benefit of the 57 schemes is said to be around £3Bn, but only one of the schemes is due to start on site this year with the remainder beginning in 2013 or 2014.

“Keeping traffic moving is vital to securing prosperity,” the Transport Secretary said. “By removing bottlenecks and improving access to local enterprise zones, international trading ports and communities these road schemes will help get people to and from work and power the economy.

“They also have the potential to help deliver more than 300,000 new jobs and 150,000 new homes.”

Speaking at the HTMA annual conference last week Department for Transport director general - domestic group Stephen Gooding anticipated the announcement of the pinch point fund, suggesting it would be one of the department’s most significant inititatives in terms of the getting the economy moving. “They are schemes for points on the road network that can really unlock development potential and are tackling issues that are holding development back.

“We are thinking of expanding it and there might be a local government equivalent too,” he said.

In the tranche of funding announced this week the Midlands will receive £51M for 20 projects, including £11M for improvements to junction four of the M5 near Bromsgrove to support development proposals for 14,000 new jobs and 4000 homes. The M42 at junction six near Solihull is to be upgraded in a £7M scheme.

The North West will receive £31M and stand out schemes there include an £8M project to improve roads around Chester Business Park. The North East, along with Yorkshire & Humberside, will receive £32M. Major schemes here include improvements at the Seaton Burn interchange where the A1 meets the A19 in Northumberland.

The East of England, South East and South West will receive £22M, £17M and £15M respectively.

Details of the 57 schemes can be viewed at