The Department for Transport has announced funding grants of more than £20m to support freight transport in the UK. The awards, from three separate funding programmes, combine to improve the freight infrastructure of the country and reduce the amount of freight transported by road.

£18.5m of funding is being awarded to enhance the Gospel Oak to Barking line in London. The enhancement, funded from the Transport Innovation Fund, will enable the line to transport more goods from key ports in the south east. The upgrade will also allow the line to be used as an alternative route for freight trains during upcoming maintenance works on the North London Line.

A further £2.1m in grants has been awarded to five freight infrastructure projects through the Freight Facilities Grant (FFG) scheme. The funding, awarded to three different companies, will upgrade facilities at Tolworth goods yard, Brierley Hill, Southampton Docks, Barry Docks and the Port of Heysham. Collectively, the projects will remove 39 million lorry km from Britain's roads over the next ten years.

The Department has also provisionally awarded just over £350,000 for this financial year as part of the Rail Environmental benefits Procurement Scheme (REPS). This funding, for carrying freight by rail that would otherwise be carried by roads, will help remove almost 28,000 lorry journeys from the UK road network. This is in addition to £44m of new REPS grants announced in June this year.

Transport Minister Tom Harris said: "These awards underline the Department's commitment to improving the freight network in this country. This year alone, the DfT has announced more than £65m to support freight, by upgrading the infrastructure and subsidising greener ways of transporting freight. This funding will help to make a significant contribution to reducing road congestion, carbon and environmental emissions. In this way everyone wins."

The new awards of Freight Facility Grants have been made to:

- Day Group Ltd has been awarded a grant of £1,150,938 towards the cost of redeveloping the former rail goods yard at Tolworth. The grant will enable them to move around 2.3 million tonnes of sand and aggregates by rail over a 10 year period. The scheme will remove over 220,000 lorry trips and result in the saving of over 14.6 million lorry kilometres from our roads over this period.

- Dunn Bros (1995) Ltd has been awarded a grant of £705,090 from the Department - and a further £395,657 from the Welsh Assembly Government - towards the cost of rail handling facilities at Brierley Hill, Southampton and Barry Docks. The grant will enable Dunn Bros Ltd to move 140,000 tonnes of scrap steel per year from Brierley Hill in Birmingham for export from Southampton and Barry. This grant will remove over 105,000 lorry journeys over the 10 years and save almost 20.8 million lorry kilometres.

- Henty Oil Ltd has been awarded a grant of £295,343 towards the construction of fuel bunker storage facilities at the Port of Heysham. The grant will enable them to transport 54,000 tonnes of heavy marine fuel oil per year by water from Liverpool to Heysham, in doing so removing over 34,000 lorry journeys and 3.6 million lorry kilometres from UK roads over a 10-year period.