REGIONAL leaders have met Government ministers to discuss the budget for Yorkshire’s plans to host the first stages of the Tour de France.

Tom Riordan, chief executive of Leeds City Council, and Clare Morrow, chairwoman of Welcome To Yorkshire, travelled to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to try to agree funding for the 2014 Grand Depart.

The Government pledged £10 million of support last month after meeting a delegation of North Yorkshire MPs.

Previously it had refused to put public funding towards the plans for Yorkshire to hold the first stages of the world’s largest annual sporting event on July 5 and 6, 2014.

Sport and Tourism Minister Hugh Robertson previously criticised tourism agency Welcome To Yorkshire’s plans, saying an expensive marketing strategy was “unnecessary” and that the plan left out Cambridge and London’s stages.

The event, which would start in York on the second day of racing, is expected to have an economic impact of more than £100 million to the region. In York alone it is expected to attract global media coverage worth £15 million, and generate £1.8 million of hotel expenditure and £6.2 million spend on just food and catering on the day the tour leaves the city.

York Outer MP Julian Sturdy, who was part of the original delegation, said: “I am pleased to see that leaders of Le Tour Yorkshire campaign are meeting with ministers to negotiate what form the Government’s funding to Yorkshire will take. I have previously met with Maria Miller, the secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport, to secure a Government commitment to make a significant contribution to the cost of Yorkshire’s staging the event.

“It seemed very clear to me and to a number of other Yorkshire MPs in the meeting, that the Government are wholeheartedly supportive of Le Grand Depart in Yorkshire.

“However, the secretary of state was very clear with my colleagues and I, that there would be conditions to meet before Yorkshire would receive Government funding, which included the necessity for improvements to be made to the delivery plan so that the Government could have more confidence in it. I am therefore hopeful that these improvements have now been made and the Le Tour Yorkshire leaders are in a strong position to bargain for significant Government funding.”