Region lags Europe on public transport

LOCAL leaders may be trying to encourage us on to public transport but it's hard to dispute that across the North - even in our big cities the car remains king.

- ROB PARSONS

That may explain why, with a General Election not far away, nearly a quarter of the £36bn saved from Rishi Sunak scrapping HS2 up North is now going on fixing potholes to make road journeys better.

But outside the UK, cars are less dominant.

And new research by the Centre for Cities today shows that public transport commuting levels in the North's big cities lag well behind European counterparts.

The number of people travelling to work on buses, trains or trams in Britain's major urban areas would need to double to catch up with those on the continent.

The analysis found the proportion of residents of Manchester and Birmingham who commute by public transport is 16% and 18% respectively.

This is in contrast with Hamburg in Germany (40%) and Lyon in France (33%), cities with similar population sizes.