Business cases that tell you what you want to justify the worst value for money rail projects but never trains and stations reinstated alongside congested roads!
LET THE FIGURES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES:
£500 million per Km (estimate) for HS2 that has to have a spur to bring it to Birmingham city centre edge.
£62 million per Km (actual cost) for Birmingham road running tram extension - very late opening in 2016
£27 million per Km (today's price) for Dudley rail and road running trams - Wednesbury to Brierley Hill. Never delivered since Midland Metro project began in 1981. Network of 15 lines and 200 Km by 2000 never delivered.
£6 million per Km (actual cost) for first (professional) Beeching rail reversal but in rural, depopulated, southern Scotland - opened on time in 2015. 49 Km for £294 million for single and double track to the middle of nowhere.
Therefore, £6 to £8 million per Km for my proposed 74 Km Western Bypass Rail Line to help deal with train congestion at Grand Central Shopping Centre (the station is in the basement of John Lewis!) and rising passenger demand for trains. This is an existing, double track rail alignment (part freight) that is fully safeguarded for the last fifty years. It goes through the heart of the industrial West Midlands, through the Black Country, from Stourbridge Junction to Derby.
£500 million for 74 Km Western Bypass Rail Line (estimate based on this year's first Beeching reversal opened).
£390 million (official ITA figure) for 15 Km trams from Sandwell Wednesbury to Dudley Brierley Hill. Geoff Inskip, at the 18 Nov ITA mtg, was confident that the money was in the bag, after the previous week's signatures for the new Combined Authority.
BEST VALUE FOR MONEY IS OBVIOUS
SOURCES: Figures from Patrick McLoughlin Sec of State for Transport
from Geoff Inskip, CEO at Centro
from Laura Shoaf, Chief Officer, W Midlands Integrated Transport Authority
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