Please could I have Rob Johnston's view of all this because he was there for the full meeting. Rob and the unions have, from the outset, always supported Metro from day one, regardless of the cost and the far more sensible priorities to which taxpayer's money should have been used. The unions have much to learn from this scandal. They need to challenge, question and not take as gospel what they are told. Simon Weller is no relation but he has also never lifted a finger to help me over the years. He filed all my evidence not in the WPB but in his London office's library (euphemism for the ubiquitous WPB)
WMCA is in a financial hole because of overspending on transport projects, especially Metro
EXTRACT FROM CAPITAL PRESSURES REPORT presented to the WMCA Board on 16 December 2022:
"4.2 The total value of the immediate and early warning matters equates to £171.1m. It is expected this maximum exposure can be mitigated to £85.9m subject to the effectiveness of specific mitigations WMCA intend to deploy.
Page 92
"4.3 The sums outlined above excludes the costs to address the Dudley to Brierley Hill element of the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro extension which will be the subject of a specific report in the February’s WMCA Board. This report will address the funding position for the Extension following an earlier report which agreed a number of funding options which would be pursued to support this scheme’s delivery in full. Once the Board has determined its preferred way forward for this scheme and further work is completed on the early warnings a fuller picture of total financial pressures can be presented."
The "fuller picture of total financial pressures" on suspended transport projects might amount to hundreds of millions of pounds. Perhaps, double the £171.1 m, above. But I don't know and I only suspect they are playing down the figures. Phase 2 of WBHE is easily the most expensive, wasteful, destructive and the least helpful of the two phases.
EXPLANATION:
WMCA is in a financial black hole because of overspending on the most grossly extravagant, wholly unnecessary Metro tram projects to entice car commuters out of their motors and onto public transport like trams to replace/duplicate buses and trains. Reinstating the trains and stations at a fraction of the price would have been much more cost effective, giving prudent spending and would have resulted in a more honest business case.
During more than forty years of work on a 200 Kms Metro tram network they have succeeded in destroying two mainline railways and, two and a quarter mainline stations (Dudley Castle Hill and Wolverhampton Low Level). The quarter is platform 4 at Snow Hill that cannot be used because this former mainline between Brum and Shrewsbury was turned into a tram line! This first incompetent, idiocy runs from Snow Hill station to Wolverhampton St George's Square. Not even to the bus station, would you believe, let alone to Low Level station that is now a conference and events centre! The tram opened in 1999. One wisecracker perceptively called it "a solution looking for a problem".
The second official insanity is the railway "of national strategic significance"
that is the 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Worcester and Derby which is being broken up into heavy rail at either end, with light rail and very light rail in the middle!
If our top politicians had returned these two mainlines for use by commuter, regional and intercity trains that had been so successful for 100 years, there would not be what one prominent member of the Board called on the 16 December:
"eye watering ... substantial financial breach" of their own regulations! Cllr Mike Bird, Leader of Walsall MBC.
SEE from about 1 hr 10 mins in:- https://wolverhampton.
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