SOUTH Lakes MP Tim Collins is to give a keynote transport speech to delegates and television viewers across the country at this year's Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth on Monday.

Mr Collins, who was made Shadow Secretary of State for Transport earlier this year, will use part of his speech to set out Conservative thinking on some of the transport problems facing people across Cumbria.

Mr Collins said: "What matters for Cumbrian's when it comes to transport policy is not ideology, airy words of fine promises but simply competence.

We have had too little of this in recent years under Governments of both parties because it is always been too easy to say that long-term solutions are the next guy's problem."