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Blair yesterday
Blair praises city pace
Yakub Qureshi21/ 4/2006
TONY Blair held up Manchester as an example to Britain as he led Labour's local election campaign yesterday.
The Prime Minister met office workers at the new Spinningfields development and said the city had been transformed by his party's regeneration policies.
In an interview with the M.E.N, Mr Blair said it was "incredible" to see how Manchester had changed since the 1996 IRA bomb. Mr Blair was accompanied by senior party officials, including Manchester council leader Richard Leese.
He met workers at the Royal Bank of Scotland's new northern head office on Hardman Boulevard as part of a tour of the city centre.
Mr Blair said it was the policies of the ruling Labour group in the city council, as well as those of his government, which had helped regenerate Manchester.
Big Bang
But he declined to give any guarantees on the future of the Metrolink "big bang" extension other than to say the '500m promised by the government remains "on the table". He said: "We've set aside over '500m and that is a very big sum of money. That's from the British tax payer for Manchester's transport. We want to see this happen but as we said before it's got to happen within reasonable budgetary constraints so we're just carrying on working at it.
"I think everyone recognises there is a connection between a good transport infrastructure and the economic activity and regeneration of a city.
"As you know the amount of money needed for the Metrolink has risen significantly since we were first talking about it. I want it to happen but it's to be within the budget.
"The money that we have allocated is still there on the table."
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21/04/2006 at 15:53
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21/04/2006 at 23:26
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