THE YORKSHIRE Party is claiming the delay in publication of the Levelling-Up Report is to give the Government more time to ‘make up new promises to break’.

Yorkshire Party Leader Bob Buxton said: “Who are they kidding? We don’t get fooled again. Promises on HS2 and Bradford’s much-needed new station have been broken. Now the Government needs time to make up new promises to break - new promises to pretend levelling-up will happen, eventually.”

“The Yorkshire transport cycle keeps turning. To make up for the last scheme being cancelled, a new one is promised. Then it is delayed, downgraded and eventually cancelled. Then a new transport scheme is promised to make up for it, and we start all over again.”

Dr Buxton also criticised Michael Gove’s idea of new regional ‘governors’. “You should never concentrate too much power in one person, it corrupts. I think we see the proof of that on a daily basis.”

“Let’s have a truthful Levelling-Up Report now, written by an independent body, to compare current and projected transport spending in Yorkshire and the North East, with that in London, the South East, the Midlands and the North West. Yorkshire and the North East have long been well behind London and the South East, now other regions are leaving us for dust. And not just on transport but on education and other areas, all of which will hamper our economic growth for decades to come.”

Dr Buxton, an engineer who has studied traffic flows, concluded: “We’re used to trains being delayed, new transport being permanently delayed, so we cannot be surprised that the Levelling-Up Report is delayed. Nor can we expect Westminster actually to act on whatever new promises are thrown our way, as crumbs from London’s table. Every year the Government proves our longstanding argument: only real devolution, like Scotland has, can bring the change Yorkshire needs.”