NEWPORT City Council’s cabinet will be asked to approve the next step in negotiating a City Deal with the UK Government, Welsh Government and surrounding authorities.

The City Deal is a way to provide funding for infrastructure investment for the Cardiff Capital City Region.

It could unlock significant new money to support investment and would ensure that Newport makes the most of developments such as the electrification of the south Wales mainline and the natural resources of Severn Estuary.

Cabinet members will hear an update at a meeting today.

In March, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that more power was being given to Wales and that a City Deal was being worked on.

A City Deal was announced for Glasgow last year, with the city benefitting from funding worth £1.3 billion.

The Government’s aims of the City Deal programme are to devolve control to cities to take charge and responsibility of decisions that affect their area, do what they think is best to help businesses grow, create economic growth and decide how public money should be spent.

Cardiff council would lead the work as they are the largest authority but all 10 local authorities involved will need approval.

The outline proposal will then be submitted to the Welsh Government.

This would outline the key aims and objectives of the deal and would represent the start of a detailed process that is likely to take up to 12 months to complete.

For the initial work to take place it is proposed to create a fund of £500,000 with all 10 authorities contributing.

The contribution each authority would make would be based on the population of each area and Newport City Council will be asked to contribute £50,000 which would come from the Invest to Save fund.

Cabinet will be asked to delegate authority to the chief executive to identify this budget and to work with other authorities to appoint specialist advisors to support the delivery of a detailed city deal proposal for south east Wales.