£1.2bn City Deal Signed

So it's all signed and sealed - looking forward to seeing what will be delivered! Lets hope this moves the metro on at some speed. All great and positive news for our 'Cardiff Capital Region' though.

more here...

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/12bn-city-deal-aims-create-11043606

you haven't copied and pasted word for word, how can i read the full article?

According to the Welsh Government website we can't expect any trams before 2023, which is a bit disappointing. Can us tram contain our excitement that long?

-The biggest chunk, £734m, is going on electrification/the Metro

- Councils will have a say in how a further £495m will be spent on the next phase of expanding the Metro

-£50m is going on semiconductor research

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... s-11043329

Let's hope this money is spent wisely on real impact projects, rather than spread so thinnly trying to please everyone and ending up achieving little, pleasing no-one!

Here is the text of the deal:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... tal-region

A few key points:
1) £325 million of the £734 million going to electrification/Metro was already committed by the announcement of fundign for electification of Valleys lines a year or so ago.
2) So its only really another £409 million of "new" money for the Metro scheme. And that new money comes from the Welsh Government, so was probably going to happen anyway (its just a budget allocation).
3) The Welsh Government money (£500m) is in effect all taken up by this Metro scheme, the remaining money comes from the UK Government (£375 million) and councils (£120 million).
4) So this is only really £375 million new money for Wales - and its not clear when over the 20 year horizon of the Deal it will be delivered.
5) The money will be paid in 5 year tranches and will only be paid if "UK and Welsh Governments are satisfied that the independent assessment shows the [earlier] investments to have met key objectives and contributed to national growth".
6) If its paid equally over time its about £19 million a year. Which is peanuts if we are honest.

Now I'm not saying these "City Deals" are not worthwhile. By getting people to collaborate and come up with ideas to boost growth for a bit of extra cash, they might be worthwhile. But the actual extra cash is pretty trifling.

The real benefits will come if:
a) It generates more growth
b) If councils get to keep at least part of the growth in business rates revenues (and indeed other tax revenues).

Forgive me for being slightly sceptical about this, when do we get an actually break down of what's being spent where and exactly how it will be spent.
The Labour WAG and the Tory UK government do like to big PR events where every bit of funding for the next 20 years all get counted together and announced as one big scheme.
If the Trams ain't coming till 2023 will the metro be a series of glorified bus lanes, perhaps most spent on security to get the bus lane built!

when do we get an actually break down of what's being spent where and exactly how it will be spent

We won't - the money will slowly evaporate over the next 20 years into a series of reports and documents released by consultants on the council's behalf.

On the one hand, great news for me as I work for a coonsultancy who's been asked to tender for some work - on the other hand bad news as it means the council are just going to spend far too long dithering with this wedge of cash until there is nothing left!