The Chancellor will use his speech at the Conservative Party Conference taking place this week in Manchester to announce a £25billion infrastructure spend over the next five years aimed at improving the UK’s major road network, bus network and broadband provision.

The announcement includes £220 million that will be allocated for bus upgrades, £50million of which will be used to develop an “all-electric bus town” while an additional £30million is expected to go towards improving existing routes and restoring a number of lost services.

Further spending is also being promised to expand the fleet of low emission buses and the creation of a superbus network.
The announcement will also cover the National Bus Strategy which will work with industry to ensure that all buses are able to accept contactless payments and will also look to open up location and fare data to app developers, further enhancing the range of digital services currently available to passengers.

The road network is also seeing major investment, with the government announcing specific plans for the forthcoming second Road Investment Strategy. This sets out plans to deliver on more than £25bn already committed for strategic roads between 2020 and 2025.

A total of 14 new local road schemes will be brought into development to make a range of improvements and upgrades. This includes widening to dual carriageway on the A66 Trans-Pennine route between Scotch Corner to Penrith and on the A46 which stretches for 155 miles between Gloucester and Lincoln. There will also be improvements to the M60 Simister Island interchange in Manchester and construction work on the A428 will also begin which runs between Cambridgeshire and Milton Keynes.