BARNSLEY will be in line for a share of more than £100m to improve transport links if new Mayor of South Yorkshire Dan Jarvis is successful in his application to a major government funding programme.
The bid to secure ‘upwards of £100m’ to improve transport across the county, grow the economy and support people to access new jobs has been submitted by the mayor, who is also Barnsley Central’s MP.
He has set out a vision to tackle the region’s transport problems in the application to the government’s Transforming Cities Fund.
“It’s a competitive process but it’s a very strong bid,” he said. It’s based on the premiss of a ‘Global Innovation Corridor’ centred on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham, the Advanced Well-being Centre in Sheffield, Doncaster Airport and Barnsley’s Digital Campus.
The Digital Campus is a plan to build on the success of the Digital Media Centre and further develop the area around it in the Courthouse car park to attract more digital-based business and employment opportunities. The money would be used to achieve better connectivity to the sites.
“It’s a really exciting prospect for the town and presents a great deal of opportunity.
“The Global Innovation Corridor is a grouping of globally innovative employment sites that provide opportunities for very well paid and highly skilled people in engineering, manufacturing and digital based jobs.
“These are the jobs of the future. This is a means by which we can develop and grow, and future-proof our economy so we can create the job opportunities we want, and sustain them over the long term.”
