Title

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Johnson pledges £5bn 'new deal' on capital projects

Boris Johnson is expected to bring forward £5bn of investment in hospitals, roads and schools later today.

Boris Johnson will bring forward £5bn of investment in hospitals, roads and schools later today.

He will promise to use the coronavirus crisis to ‘to tackle this country's great unresolved challenges of the last three decades'.

The ‘New Deal' sets out plans to ‘build back better' by investing £5bn to accelerate infrastructure projects and create new jobs.

This includes £1.5bn for hospital maintenance, £1bn for new schools, £900m for ‘shovel ready' local growth projects, and £100m for 29 road projects.

He is expected to say: ‘Too many parts of this country have felt left behind, neglected, unloved, as though someone had taken a strategic decision that their fate did not matter as much as the metropolis.

'And so I want you to know that this government not only has a vision to change this country for the better, we have a mission to unite and level up – the mission on which we were elected last year.'

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Neighbourhood watch

By David Blackman | 20 February 2026

With the UK’s Shared Prosperity Fund expiring imminently, the launch of the Pride in Place programme has placed a renewed focus on neighbourhood regeneration...

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

LGR: putting planning back into the spotlight

By Catriona Riddell | 19 February 2026

We now have a government that puts planning at the heart of economic growth, but does reorganisation provide a golden opportunity for reform, or the perfect ...

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

A close look at Far East governance

By Dan Peters | 19 February 2026

Japan’s city mayors are pushing to become independent of the main regional level of government, while financial decentralisation is being boosted through tou...

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

The recovery continues

By Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton | 16 February 2026

Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton says the local government finance settlement is key to delivering fairer funding.

Popular articles by Laura Sharman