Andy Street's Metro review was never published or made the slightest difference!

Dear gentlemen - much ammunition here for you to make mincemeat of the hopeless Tories!

I believe Andy Street ordered the Metro review in 2020.  It could not have been independent because it was to be conducted and written up by Mark Smith, Chair of Audit, Risk & Assurance Committee of the WMCA, I understand.  Therefore, totally biased and useless from the start!

Was this review ever carried out?

Why have I never been able to get to the bottom of this mystery?

What was going wrong with Metro that prompted the review announcement?

Was one reason, the financially irresponsible and enormous cost of a project whose sole reason for its existence was Andy's much vaunted "multi-modal transport" that he wrote to me about?  

Like for like comparison of construction costs:

In 2003, when opened, the M6 Toll was £21m/Km

In 2015 when opened, rebuilding the Borders Railway was £7m/Km

In 2022, Metro Westside extension was £80m/Km, I believe (Andy's one and only feather in his cap!)

“The 1,350m Birmingham to Edgbaston extension cost £149m, including phase one from Grand Central to the library.” = £110 m/Km, up from £75 m/Km at the start. (Peter Madeley in the Express & Star)

 Like for like comparison of infrastructure buil...

What went wrong with the three transport projects that meant that they had to be suspended last year?

A 700 metre section of Metro is taking very many years to build because of stop-start work from mistakes having to be corrected. This suggests serious incompetence at TfWM/WMCA.  Did work on the ground start in 2015?  Surely not!

SCANDAL:

The first idiocy and incompetence was turning a former mainline railway that was unused, into a tramway.  It opened in 1999.

Folly no 2: it was never connected to even the nearby Wolverhampton bus station, let alone the railway station.  As, of course, the railway trains between Wolverhampton and Snow Hill did for 100 years.

Scandal no 3: Commuter and regional trains could have been re-introduced at, literally, a small fraction of the cost that Metro is turning out to be to, eventually, get it to Wolverhampton's last railway station.  And, even then, it permanently bypasses the other station, Snow Hill.  Yet, the go ahead was given by HMG (actually, Norman Baker MP, Transport Minister) to connect Snow Hill to Grand Central that has never come about and never will.  That really was its sole justification.  The epitomy of incompetence!

Why was a new University Station given the go ahead when there were far more urgent transport projects, like re-opening or, simply finishing with freight and passenger trains, the 120 Kms (74 miles) Black Country Railway between Worcester and Derby?

In Andy Street's six years, not one railway project has come to fruition because he gave Metro expansion top priority.  Yet, he has only achieved the completion of one tram project in six years (that started way before him, anyway!).  That one scheme is Westside Extension that was shortened to end at 54 Hagley Road instead of seeing the demolition of the fine Calthorpe House on Hagley Road (the original plan).  Metro is a grossly extravagant, prestigious, wealth-flaunting project to impress the tourists and to entice businesses to a city that is wanting to rival the Paris, Milans and Tokyos of this world.

Remember, WMCA transport I believe, takes the biggest slice of the finance pie.  Insulating and solar powering the Midlands buildings should have that slice in the light of your self declared climate emergency that is bringing us all a bleak future.

Please ACT.  And a decent reply would make my day!

to John Nightingale

It's really nice to hear from you and you make such good points, especially over London and the south east getting much more spent on them for transport, per head, than other regions and countries of the UK.  The billions now going on trams for us will help to redress the balance!  But, it's an immoral priority for public spending, in my opinion, when the poor will be in ever greater difficulties as energy prices rise this year and in subsequent years.

I do genuinely like Andy Street who is a left wing Conservative.  He has given me a number of opportunities to speak to him in person, including at his 'Ask Andy' public meetings since 2017 when I first met him.  I voted for him in 2017 and 2021, too!  However, lovely man as he is, he doesn't get it.  He maintains that multi-modal transport of trams, buses and trains are essential to get people out of their cars and onto public transport.  But all the experts have been saying that about Brum ever since I first arrived in the city in 1967 but, by 1960, they had destroyed the complete tram network and had started to do the same with the urban railway network that was no longer in use!

The other problem is the impossibility to reverse the 40 years old tram project.  No one in authority has the guts to question the conventional transport wisdom.  It's been grinding on forever, everyone is transfixed and paralysed with the whole thing.  And, anyway, it gives work to so many.  The engineers love the challenge of building it, too.

The public love the new trams, their prestige and the shocking over indulgence involved.  I love trams, too!  But, it is all vanity and makes public transport slower with more changes and clogs up the roads.  As a cyclist I have to be wary not to get my wheel dropping into the track rut.  Another hazard to look out for!

Always lovely to hear from you.

Advocate, ambassador, champion Andy!

Mr Street will have responsibility for some of the biggest issues affecting the lives of around 2.8m people in the West Midlands.

His powers include control over long-term budgets from central government to:

• Work with business leaders to drive the region’s economic growth and recovery from Covid-19
• Improve transport
• Increase house building and regeneration across the region
• Improve skills and jobs

As Mayor, Mr Street will also continue to lobby Government and act as an advocate and ambassador on the global stage, championing the West Midlands and the issues that matter most to local people.

https://www.wmca.org.uk/news/andy-street-re-elected-as-mayor-of-the-west-midlands/

Now, underground tram lines - what a thrill to spill yet more greenhouse gases!

Now, underground tram lines - what a thrill to spill yet more greenhouse gases!

"As part of his re-election campaign, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has unveiled his ambitious £15bn transport plan for the region. ... At 150 miles long, the ambitious transport network expansion would feature eight new Metro lines, 380 new stops and 21 new rail stations.5 Feb 2020"

FROM:

https://www.google.com/search?q=andy+street%27s+metro+plan&oq=Andy+Streets&aqs=chrome.3.0i355i457j46j0j0i10i22i30l2j0i22i30l2j0i10i22i30.19727j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

WMCA declaring a climate emergency is pointless and hypocritical without GREEN ACTION!

“The more we spend, the more we burn up fossil fuels, it seems to me.  Have I got this right?” SELF, 16 Feb 2019

“More or less right! … ”  SIR JONATHON PORRITT, 17 Feb 2019

For me, the first green action is to scrap pointless Metro expansion that involves, for five schemes, over £1.5 billion of fossil fuel burning to make for more ecocidal greenhouse gases, tipping points passed and extinction of all life.

Use the money to get Andy's wish: "the West Midlands will have the first clean bus fleet outside of London by 2021." 

FINISH with the widespread thinking that closed urban railway lines are for conversion to buildings, roads and tram lines.

Instead, urgent action on using our train lines for commuter and regional trains, not trams.

Scrap over £300 m Sprint diesels on only three routes and use Metro and Sprint money to urgently bring in fareless, ELECTRIC buses for all.

100% bus lanes on dual carriageways, traffic light priority for buses to speed them on their way at the expense of car commuters and car shoppers.  To free up road space for essential vehicles.

Reward, with payments those whose school run is on foot or cycle - or motorbike!

Upgrading every towpath and cycle-walkway to give them a hard, free draining, all weather surface for responsible shared use.

Every E,W, S facing roof to have PV panels to make the building a mini power station for free electricity.

Start thinking that maybe, it is as anti social jumping in the car or, burning natural gas and oil or, entering a plane, as those who smoke in public.

Lag yourself and your home.

OTHER THINGS TO DO:

 My Andy Street newsheet for him to copy!