Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that rural local authorities, such as North Yorkshire, are able to access the Growth and Housing Accelerator Fund on equal terms with urban areas.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The £165 million Growth and Housing Acceleration Fund (GHAF) in the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3) will bridge funding gaps for critical transport works on or near the Strategic Road Network to unblock stalled housing and employment sites across England. National Highways launched the GHAF on the 21 April 2026, inviting eligible authorities to register potential developments for consideration.

The fund is open to applications from across England, including in rural areas such as North Yorkshire. To ensure rural authorities can access the fund on equal terms, National Highways has published eligibility and assessment criteria and will operate a fair and equitable process, applying those criteria consistently to all proposals.

The fund website can be found here:- Growth and Housing Accelerator Fund - National Highways

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how the Growth and Housing Accelerator Fund will support stalled housing developments in rural areas such as North Yorkshire; and what criteria National Highways will use to ensure that rural communities receive equitable levels of that funding.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The £165 million Growth and Housing Acceleration Fund (GHAF) in the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3) will bridge funding gaps for critical transport works on or near the Strategic Road Network to unblock stalled housing and employment sites across England. National Highways launched the GHAF on the 21 April 2026, inviting eligible authorities to register potential developments for consideration. A continuous rolling programme of delivery will be published from the end of 2026/27.

The fund is open to applications from across England, including in rural areas such as North Yorkshire. National Highways published the eligibility and assessment criteria at launch and will apply them consistently, with a focus on proposals where a specific transport constraint is preventing development and where there is evidence of a genuine viability gap, strong deliverability, and value for money.

The GHAF will support targeted, smaller-scale interventions and complements, rather than replaces, wider strategic investment programmes. As such, National Highways expects the GHAF to support both rural and urban communities, with the pipeline developed through developments submitted by eligible authorities and assessed against the published criteria.