HELEN, THIS IS FAR FROM BEING GOOD OR EVEN COMPETENT GOVERNANCE!
From my research and record keeping, I believe this is accurate and correct:
In the early summer of 2022, after three years of work on WBHE, further work had to be suspended because of a realisation that they were running out of money and could not do the full 10.7 Kms for the £449 m budgeted for. The work had either cost £385m by then or was expected to cost £385m just to get it to Flood Street. Therefore, work onwards from Flood Street was suspended and it was decided, in June or July 2022, that the project should be split into two . The suspended section was to become Phase 2. And that was definitely NOT the original plan, nor at anytime since 1981 when the whole absurd 200 Kms by the year 2000 was dreamt up - as 106 Kms of railway lines rotted or 18 Kms were slowly turned into tramlines at a snail like pace or, others remained only for freight!
In December 2022, we had a Comedy Authority report on WBHE Phase 2 about a funding shortfall of around £300 m to get it to Cottage Street, Brierley Hill to finish the 10.7 Kms.
The summer 2022 Phase 1 brainwave is 6.8 Km in total with 5.5 Kms on a perfectly good, former mainline railway between London, Oxford, Worcester, Dudley, Derby.
Phase 1 is from Great Western Street, Wednesbury to Flood Street, Dudley seems to be costing around £400 m by the time Phase One only, is finally expected to be opened and in use, as the comedians insist, by Christmas 2024.
The new, 2022 idea of having a Phase 1 of 6.8 Kms is turning out to be as expensive as the 2019 cost of £449 m for the full 10.7 Kms
Metro lines in use, now in 2023, are 23 Kms from St Georges Sq, Wolverhampton to Edgbaston Village tram stop. Of that, 5 Kms are on roads and 18 Kms are on a former mainline railway between Snow Hill station and Wolverhampton Low Level station (now a conference and events centre because of Metro). A total of 3.5 Kms of double track railway lines are now lost in Wolverhampton because of trams being reinstated instead of trains. And the trams, unlike the trains for 100 years, still don't connect the two stations and never will for years to come in the case of Snow Hill! They will finally connect the Wolverhampton bus and railway stations by the end of this year.
The last railway reopenings:
Smethwick Galton Bridge opened in September 1995; Walsall to Rugeley in May 1998. In 25 years we have had nothing more apart from a change of mind from tram to train for the Camp Hill line but, in June a 12 month delay was announced on that re-opening! 42 years of top priority given to rebuilding the tram network on the remains of the railway network. Quite absurd.
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