In the House of Commons a few days ago I managed to get the DPM behind these two projects, when I raised the following at Questions to the Deputy Prime Minister:
Guy Opperman:
The North East LEP has done great work, but does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that in rural Northumberland we need the LEP to support rural connectivity and economic regeneration projects such as The Sill and the Gilsland station rebuild?
Deputy Prime Minister
If those issues are not covered by the growth deal that has already been entered into, they are precisely the kind of items that my hon. Friend and others locally may wish to push for in the successor rounds, because devolving control over transport investment decisions is emerging as one of the common themes in all the different growth deals across the whole country.
Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 14 October 2014, c152)