The North of England Local Enterprise Partnerships have been supported by Chancellor Phillip Hammond today, with a boost of £556m, against a backdrop of slower economic growth forecasts.

Also of interest in the Statement was investment in Infrastructure, Roads and Housebuilding – all good news for the construction sector, linked with the Corporation tax cuts for business.

A small amount (relatively!) of £220m was set aside for ‘traffic pinch-points’ and it will be interesting to see how this is allocated and subsequently used? We all have our least-favourite route that needs investment, (thanks for asking – mine is the woefully inadequate A550 into Wales from M53 to A55) but this is  not a huge amount of money?

The investment in 40,000 affordable houses is good news, and I await views on how Planning is tackled, if these are to be built quickly. I would also like to see some incentives for radical new schemes for affordable housing – some great ‘plug-and-play’ designs are around – and these create housing quickly.