8.8 Beyond Objective One

Unfortunately, as a result of the prevailing attitudes within the European Commission at the time of the Objective One bid process in 1999, the full importance that transport infrastructure solutions have in supporting economic regeneration and how that impacts on the entire programme delivery was not recognised or accepted.  One overriding difficulty lay in justifying the outputs from stand-along transport schemes.  Some transport project bids initially failed to overcome this problem, with projects either not taken forward at all or struggling to definitely prove economic outcomes.

However, it is considered that this has not changed and there is a broad acceptance of the role of infrastructure provision in aiding regeneration.

The new European programme that is likely for Cornwall, in whatever form it takes, presents an opportunity to be more proactive and to continue the good work that has already been undertaken with representative groups in other sectors, i.e. business, commerce and tourism through the wide range of existing Objective One Task Forces.  Objective One (or its equivalent) investment into transport infrastructure development will be critical in the following respects:

  • Demonstrating commitment to development of transport infrastructure and building investor confidence.

  • Focusing investment into existing towns, urban areas and other business premises, supporting retail vitality and viability.

  • Improving accessibility to employment in order to capitalise on increased opportunities for business training and employment.

  • Supporting sustainable tourism initiatives.

And finally, but importantly:

  • Helping to break the link between economic growth and road traffic and, hence, congestion.