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<p>The Stafford area has benefitted from the following Government funded initiatives
to tackle congestion and improve public transport:</p><p> </p><ul><li>The Department
for Transport has allocated over £23m to Staffordshire County Council in 2017/18 for
routine road maintenance and small transport projects. That included £3.711m National
Productivity Investment Funding for highways and public transport works in 2017/18
to help reduce congestion and improve or upgrade local highway infrastructure assets
and unlock economic and job creation opportunities. The Council also succeeded in
securing a Challenge Fund award of £5m for the maintenance of Burton upon Trent river
crossings.</li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>The Government provided £87.5m towards the upgrading
of the M6 to Smart Motorway status from Junction 10a (M54 interchange) to Junction
13 (Stafford), which was completed in February 2016.</li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>The
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Enterprise Partnership has been awarded £121m over
3 rounds of Local Growth Fund. Funded projects include £24.3m for Stafford Western
Access Route to ease congestion into the town centre and £6.5m towards a local sustainable
transport package to improve access opportunities to employment, education and training.</li></ul><p>
</p><ul><li>HS2 trains will serve the current station in Stafford. This will become
an integrated high speed station where passengers can benefit from accessing the high
speed network towards the South.</li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>The Stafford Area Improvement
Project has removed a major rail bottleneck through the Stafford area, facilitating
the introduction of new timetables, creating the capacity to run two additional trains
per hour in each direction between London and the north west of England, and one additional
fast service per hour between Manchester and Birmingham in each direction.</li></ul><p>
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