Lets waste £10 billion in London...

[qzdcg8]

...whilst canning the Metrolink extensions...

Follow this link to find out why...

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/ ... _plan.html

An absolute disgrace, once again we have a London-centric government at work again!!!!

If any UK member of this site has any regard for public transport across the UK whatsover they will NOT be voting for President Blair and his cronies next year!!!

[Christopher125]

If any UK member of this site has any regard for public transport across the UK whatsover they will NOT be voting for President Blair and his cronies next year!!!

And they wont be voting for the Conservatives either given their manifesto on transport. ("lets improve public transport by spending less money on it!")

Chris

[qzdcg8]

Here's the specific section from Mr Darling's statement today...

Mr Darling also made clear the costs of proposed light rail schemes needed to be better controlled. He said:
" Light rail can be very effective in persuading people to use public transport. Since 2000 new lines have opened in Croydon, Tyne and Wear, Manchester and Nottingham.

"Manchester’s metro has been extremely successful. But plans for the extension have been dogged by successive cost increases. The central Government capital contribution rose from £282 million cash in 2000 to £520m cash in 2002, on top of which required annual central government payments have also risen from £5m a year in 2000 to £17m a year today - worth roughly another £150m.

"There's a similar pattern with the Leeds and South Hampshire tram proposals. In Leeds the Present Value of the public sector contribution was capped at £355m, but is now estimated at £500 million. And in South Hampshire, the original £170m Present Value is now £100m more.

"And in each case there's no certainty that costs won't rise further. The NAO was right to raise concerns; looking back over the last 20 years it has cost more to provide light rail here than elsewhere in Europe.

"No Government could accept these schemes as they are on the basis of these cost escalations. We cannot therefore approve them. We need instead to look urgently at how light rail could be made affordable, including the best approach for procurement. We will work with local authorities on the development of schemes, building on the recent NAO recommendations."

[alex2008]

Frankly the railways will get treated like rubbish whoever is in power; railways are relatively lucky to have Labour in power and for them to have been so willing to spend as much as they have. I'm sure the railways would of been very different if the Conservatives had been in power for the last 5 or so years.

Its sad to see that they won't be extending the trams in Manchester but there’s no point in being angry as its not going to change a thing, very sad though.

[arabiandisco]

London needs Crossrail.

Manchester extensions are a completely different issue (Maybe they are needed as badly as Crossrail, never having been to manchester I don't know), but what it boils down to is the treasury is not prepared to spend any money at all. They want anyone else to fund Crossrail, and you can bet that if the private sector doesn't come up with the money, the project will die it's second death, only to be resurrected and killed again when the treasury fails to deliver the cash once more.

The government makes too much money from fuel tax to seriously want people to get out of their cars, they just pay lip service to the idea whilst using fuel revenue to fatten up their pensions. It's why anything long term should not be trusted to politicians, they can only think as far as the next election, and are, without exception, soulless leeches.

I won't be voting for HRH A Blair, but where I live we only get the 3 monkeys to choose from anyway. So i'll probably spoil my ballot paper, as usual.

[alex2008]

So i'll probably spoil my ballot paper, as usual.

Completely off topic, but thats a really negative thing to say, even if nothing ever happens in your area, its still good to know if you visited London in 15years time you will may be able to travel on cross rail.

Mr Darling will be looking to invest more heavily in London in a chance that heavy investment in public transport will swing the bid to win us the Olympics. Maybe...

[arabiandisco]

I visit London every day, though I never need to go anywhere near the crossrail route.

I have less than no time for politicians of any party though, they're all self-serving, soulless leeches. So my protest vote is to write a rude word across my ballot paper. Until they put a "none of the above" box on ballot papers, I shall continue to go to the polling station and register my discontent in that way.

The olymipcs? The government will never pay for it...

[slipdigby]

A couple of thoughts:

Was the "big bang" actually value for money? In 2000, the 3 line extensions were costed at £238 million. By the last estimate, the cost was estimated at £1 billion with the bill increasing by £1 million per day (accoridng to the MEN). The scheme was pretty much local in scope, with the routes being pretty much designed to achieve social and redevelopment goals rather than from a viable traffic point of view (such as a tram route down Oxford Road, surely Europe's busiest bus corridor is viable for a light rail route?). Even regular visitors to Manchester from the surrounding region are unlikely to use any of the new lines that were proposed (Day trip to Ardwick, Mumps or Wythenshawe anyone? ). In addtion, this bid for funds for Metrolink is competing agaijnst schemes nationally, including those in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Portsmouth, Newcastle, Leeds and Liverpool, all of which have a pretty equal claim to Central Government money in the name of "regeneration".

In comparison, Crossrail will fill numerous goals on a national and regional level as well as locally. Crossrail will be just as useful for someone travelling from Bristol to Ipswich, as for someone going for a meeting on the other side of London, or a traveller needing a quick and simple way between Paddington and the centre of London. In addition, the government haven't actually committed ANY money to the scheme, and have gone as far to suggest that the vast percentage of funds for Crossrail will have to come from private sources rather than central government. In typical Sir Humphrey speak, the government has only "announced the announcement" . It would be quite easy for the project to be quietly "dropped" after the next election (Just like with Metrolink ).

But here's a crazy idea. Around major towns and cities, enforce a congestion charge (and maybe workplace parking taxes). Allow PTE's greater control of public transport operations in cities, using the funds from road charging to improve public transport provision. Extensions to systems like Metrolink could be self funded by the cities themselves, obliviating the need for cities like Manchester, Sheffield or even London to justify the amount of national money being spent on schemes that usually only benefit the immediate locality or region.

Thoughts?
Slip

[qzdcg8]

Although the trams would not have reached the best parts of town, they still would provide commuter facilities for people in those towns - all those car journeys into Manchester along Oldham Road, Ashton Old Road and Kingsway - and don't forget the link into the Airport too - 20,000 people work there! One of the reasons the cost went up was because they were also shoe-horning the Chorlton to Didsbury and Didsbury ti Stockport lines into Phase 3 as well - maybe they should have kept all the pieces of Phase 3 separate so as not to scare off this U-Turn happy Government.

And don't forget the Government sponsored SEMMS report (the existence of which killed off the A6M and most of the Manchester Airport Link Road for at least 10 years) - this recommended even more extensions to Metrolink from Stockport to the Airport and Stockport to Marple - mostly on old and current railway lines. So having been shafted by this Government over our local road system and now shafted again over the Metrolink you can underside why I am angry!

[nwallace]

Regional Parliment with Transport powers anyone?

[markw]

There are a number of issues at play here.

Since Metrolink phase 1 all light rail schemes have had to have private sector money put into them. It was the ideology of the Conservative Government, and taken on board by New Labour, that this reduced the public sector borrowing requirement, introduced "private sector" discipline and would lead to cost saving innovation. Speaking as someone who has had first hand experience in the planning and procurement of light rail, everyone in the industry knows the private sector will increase their costs where there is unquantifiable risk involved. Despite what Thatcher and all successors have thought (probably peddled by some halfwit economics graduate at the Treasury) the private sector will only take risk where it knows it has complete control of the situation, which it doesn't in the case of light rail. Some of the risks the private sector are now "charging" the public sector for in their tenders include:

1) NIMBYS. We as enthusiasts may find this difficult to believe but many people don't want trams running up their street. They are frightened of noise and vibration. They engage no-win,no-fee compensation chasing lawyers to sting the promoters for compensation (and no-win no-fee lawyers were first authorised by the Conservatives, but had their scope widened by Labour, so that's an own goal for each side there) for the percieved loss of value to their property. Businesses worry about the loss of parking, or access. Most promoters will overcome these issues in the Public Inquiry, but it didn't stop some nasty disputes breaking out on Midland Metro for example, fuelled by local press. same thing happened in Sheffield and Manchester. If a NIMBY decides to take the law into their own hands it can disrupt construction, and increase costs while staff are diverted to resolve the issue - and as light rail is promoted in this country by local councils and PTE's, the political involvement can lead to delay. So the private sector constructor (who is usually in these contracts given construction risk) charges a "contingency sum" in case this happens.
2) Services. These are gas and water mains. In this country we tend to require services be diverted, partly so that if they need repairs they don't have to dig up the track, and partly because when a tram runs along the track it returns some of the current it is taking back to the sub station, but some leaks into the ground. This can lead to electrolytic corrosion of the pipes. On the continent, they don't care about this so much, but over here, we do, so we have to move the mains. The Conservative Government's privatisation policy for the utilities was made on the understnding that such moves are fully charged at a commercial rate by the utilities, even though in many cases they will be getting much better services put back than were removed. there are moves to change this funding arrangement, and indeed it may have already happened, but because none of the utility companies actually have full records of their plant location (in particular semi-disused plant and cabling) you cannot get a fixed cost for utility diversions. This is another risk that ends up being given a massive contingency.
3)Planning. The Order making process doesn't usually fix the locations precisely of stops, nor does it state what they will look like. When stops are finally fixed, and the accesses designed, and the stops and landscaping designed, it then needs some form of planning consent. Another opportunity for NIMBYs to delay things. If you don't believe this, in Northern ireland the reinstated Bleach Green to Antrim line had a new station built at Mosney West - which was not allowed to open (even though the line was open) until a footbridge alongside a road bridge was provided. Given you don't really know how contentious a planning application will be until the site notice goes up, the constructors tend to add in delay contingency here.
4) Legislation/HMRI. The Government themselves introduce, from time to time, legislation which will affect light rail. The Accessibility Regulations were a good example. Although these tend to be known about in advance, last minute changes can occur, and the opening (and hence revenue coming back to the constructor/operator) can be delayed. Similarly, the HMRI could be unhappy about something and the opening delayed, which affects the revenue forecasts. If a constructor is borrowing money from a bank to help fund construcyion, and has planned an opening date for x which gets delayed to y, the revenue lost will be increased interest payments on the loan. Hence, there will be another contingency factored in.
5) Raw materials/labour cost inflation. The present Government has massively increased capital investment compared to the Conservatives during the 80's and 90's. This has led to materials and labour shortages, and increased cost. Now this is firmly within the risk area for construction - except most contractors will factor the increase into subsequent bids, which is why costs are creeping up. Of course, something like Hadfield happens and all the rail relaying expertise is tied up repairing cracks - so costs shoot up if you can get a specialist rail firm who isn't rebuilding the main lines. It's the same with signalling and electrification works.

There are many more factors involved in costs rising - over optomistic ridership predictions on earlier routes leading to lower revenue streams and a desire to try and recoup some of the losses, the way we tender for things in this country, many of which are actually the fault directly of previous, and this, Government. I don't think Alistair Dahlink should be badgering the private sector to lower it's costs, he should be telling his own - and the Treasury's - mandarins in Whitehall that the way they insist on the Public-Private Partnership model is flawed and increasing costs. The best way to get a good price is to go to tender with a fully designed scheme with certainty, and allow the private sector to control construction and operation risk which it understands and can cost for.

However, that would put Dahlink Alistair off message, so it won't happen.

[qzdcg8]

Regional Parliment with Transport powers anyone?

It's got get it's money from somewhere....

...and that will be from a certain Scottish git who live's next door to President Blair! Nuff said.

To MarkW - all good stuff, and the cost creep is almost certainly because of the reasons you give - my point was that there has also been scope creep too.

Needless to say this has stirred up a Hornet' Nest of anger here in Manchester where they've spent £200m on Phase 3 already - I still don't understand how they can legally pull funding, having promised it 2 years ago and other large sums of money have been spent in expectation of it. I expect to see some serious political lobbying over this and wouldn't be at all surprised if it doesn't end up in court!

[martinhodgson]

From the Airport's point of view this is bad, not just for the 20,000 staff and even more passengers/visitors using the airport from local areas, but also because they recently built a whole new transport interchange, linking bus, coach and rail. This was also designed largely for Metrolink, which probably featured heavily in the planning application, only now for some of the millions spent, and indeed some of the space for the Metrolink, to be wasted.

[markw]

There has been scope creep - not least of which was the decision to go for the all at once option. I remember at the time the Government, whilst not rejecting the idea, didn't officially sanction it either, saying at the time that the future development of light rail in Manchester as elsewhere would be taken in the light of available resources and on the basis of value for money. I suspect that GMPTE might have recieved encouraging nudges from their construction partner that if they have a big package of works they could deliver cost efficiencies, and I suspect the DforT possibly might have suggested it be worth the risk to see if it was true, but since then circumstances have changed and the Government has had the Audit commission report on UK light rail, and possibly is worried about the amount of money that could be needed to fund cost over-runs which will inevitably happen.

I would also suspect that it isn't the end of Manchester Metrolink extensions. I expect they will get further funding for individual extensions, playing to the old, less efficient rules. In particular any routes that replace heavy rail must be a runner.

I also expect this announcement, coupled with the floating of a congestion tax replacing road and petrol tax, is a precursor to the announcement of greater local funding for rail schemes in general, which would be prioritised locally in LTP's, as foreshadowed by the abolition of the SRA. So, not only might the Scottish parliament be allowed to fully fund the Borders rail link instead of being held up by the SRA saying "nyet" but PTE's might finally be allowed to have greater funding of schemes in their area - and conversion of local lines to light rail is a good way of reducing the Revenue budget of subsidies to rail operators at the expense of greater Capital investment.

Manchester, together with Birmingham (if they can stop trying to re-invent the wheel) are the two places in the UK where a wide network of light rail lines could be justified in transport and economic grounds so I expect this is a political wrist slapping, Alistair Dahlink making his mark and getting to grips with something that's been picked up and dropped more times than a rugby ball.

[johndibben]

The only Crossrail I want is Oxford to Cambridge

A sort of 'Miffedrail'. Still a good idea but a little less negative emotion