Fraudulent June 2017 Business Case for WBHE

EVIDENCE IN BOLD over lack of probity and competence.

So grossly misleading claims from unrealistic thinking that they amount to lies.

My corrections/rebuttal in blue.

Andy Street's Forward to Business Case:

"As you are aware, we are also working on a case for transferring the ownership of the line from Network Rail to the West Midlands Combined Authority which we think will help to ensure we are able to control costs Costs are so out of control that work was stopped in 2022 and the 11 Kms project was divided into two halves and deliver to timetable Planning began in 1981 and work on the ground in 2019!  In four years, not even a 5.5 Kms tram route on a principal mainline railway is nowhere near finished. whilst making provision for future national rail use of the route."  Even a single track for trains is totally unrealistic because of bridges, tunnels and buildings.

FAILURE TO CONTROL COSTS TO KEEP WITHIN BUDGET

FAILED TO KEEP TO THEIR OWN TIMETABLE

FAILURE TO BE HONEST

FAILED TO BE COMPETENT

FROM https://www.metroalliance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WBHE-Business-Case-June-2017.pdf

Introduction

"The Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro Extension is in the unique position of having a valid Transport and Works Act Order in place, with funding commitments for initial development (from the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership and the West Midlands Combined Authority) and widespread support from local authorities and the business community. The route makes use of one of the few remaining disused railway alignments left in the West Midlands, the former South Staffordshire Railway from Walsall to Stourbridge. It will provide a mainly segregated Metro service with the opportunity for fast and reliable connections between important towns and cities, in a part of the West Midlands that has historically suffered from a lack of rail based options. It will also make provisions for long-term plans to reintroduce freight traffic into the disused railway. The Metro is planned to adopt a tram train operation so as to allow the use of both Metro trains and conventional freight services to be used, On the UK's last but still available, nationally important mainline railway, to have trams on two nibble-sized sections, followed by tram trains or train trams, followed by freight trains - is entirely unrealistic and a wholly madcap idea.  Can freight go on the tramway at night? thus allowing freight traffic to avoid many congested railway locations across the West Midlands network; improving both journey time and reliability."

3.11 This preferred option also paves the way for the introduction of rail freight on the Walsall to Stourbridge corridor by reinstating the currently derelict corridor and enhancing the likelihood of the reintroduction of freight along the Stourbridge to Walsall route, removing lorries from the congested M5/M6 corridor and freeing up train paths on the congested West Midlands rail network. It will also allow for future extension to Stourbridge and to Walsall.  And all you had to do, for a fraction of the price, was to rebuild the stations and reinstate the regional and intercity services between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby!

The metro extension makes use of the disused railway alignment of the South Staffordshire Railway, one of only a few remaining abandoned rail corridors in the West Midlands. Abandoned by councillors and officers.  Many councillors gave planning permission for about 100 Kms of Victorian railway lines to be built on.  Seven Dudley railway lines have been lost.  It will provide a mainly segregated service with the opportunity for fast and reliable light rail connection between important towns and cities in a part of the West Midlands that has historically suffered from a lack of rail based options. Because of the authorities destroying them!  The scheme has also been designed to facilitate future tram-train operation that will allow for freight trains to avoid ‘hot-spots’ on the network and improve journey times and reliability (See Figure 4.2).  Utterly impossible unless the freight can use the line at night.  Is that what they mean?  But they have never said so in any communication with me or anyone else I've heard from.

Isn't it funny. Every business case ...

is called robust;

robustly justifies every kind of expenditure from spending £1 billion of public money on 14 Kms of tramline to duplicate a bus route in 2014;

to spending nearly the same but, this time, private money on the M6 Toll for 43 Kms in 2003;

to splashing out £17.6 billion of public money on 117 Kms Crossrail;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to extend your £1 billion tram line to replace buses;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to convert our ready made, but they forgot the trains and stations, 120 Kms mainline "of national strategic significance" into a piddling shuttle tram line on two short, middle sections, totalling 6.7 Kms.

All this, when there is never a business case to slash public spending on the Police, the NHS/social care or education to pay for all this largesse.

The money is always found for the flash, the glamorous, the most prestigious projects to hasten Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "the extinction of much of the natural world" warnings from the COP24 in Poland in December 2018.

Are you good Scots getting in on the English act?  Don't follow the English way of the most perverse spending priorities and isolationism!

GLORIOUS ENGLISH ECCENTRICITY: the UK's only mothballed, easily reinstated, ready made but they forgot the trains and stations, mainline railway!

WHICH IS MORE SENSIBLE THINKING?

2 or 3 fast regional trains every hour and nine new stations to complete the

120 Kms between Worcester and Derby;  OR: 6 to 10 "bus on rails" trams every hour and 17 tram stops over only 11 Kms to STOP the reinstatement of the railway "of national strategic significance."

SMART POLITICIANS?

£449 m plus cost overruns to build the Black Country Tramline over 6.7 Kms that destroys the Black Country Railway over 56 Kms.  All 56 Kms can get commuter/regional trains back for less than £200 m (2015 figure).  Or, stupid politicians?

SMART RAILWAYS?

Why CUT a 120 Kms principal, mainline railway through the congested West Midlands with a tramline in two halves, a railway test track and a trail of trees, Japanese knotweed and undergrowth, when absent trains on 56 Kms of track could have their trains and stations back, FOR LESS MONEY than using trams on only 6.7 Kms?

Isn't it funny. Every business case ...

is called robust;

robustly justifies every kind of expenditure from spending £1 billion of public money on 14 Kms of tramline to duplicate a bus route in Edinburgh in 2014;

to spending nearly the same but, this time, private money on the M6 Toll for 43 Kms in 2003;

to splashing out £17.6 billion of public money on 117 Kms Crossrail;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to extend Edinburgh's £1 billion tram line to Newhaven to replace buses;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to convert our ready made, but they forgot the trains and stations, 120 Kms mainline "of national strategic significance" into a piddling little shuttle tram line on two short, middle sections, totalling 6.7 Kms.   

"The latest work to refine the scheme and the efficiencies to be developed within the Midland Metro Alliance give a good level of confidence that the project can be delivered within the current funding envelope (SELF: of £44,000 per metre, times 11 Kms.  Eleven times the cost per kilometre of the second attempt at returning trains between Wolverhampton and Walsall.  The first attempt was a failure, last decade!)."  Report to WMCA Investment Board on 11 March 2019

"the scheme has a benefit to cost ratio of 2.03:1."      

Every business case comes up with a great Cost Benefit Ratio that compels massive expenditure, eg to dismantle/destroy the tram network and to rebuild it on the road and railway networks a few decades later.  This is called high Value for Money when it is 2.03:1.  In other words, you double your money.  Therefore, whatever you pay up front, you get more than double that back in destroying yet another urban and intercity railway line, in the case of trams taking over the UK's one and only mothballed mainline.

"As part of the arrangements for the transfer of part of the abandoned South Staffordshire rail corridor (SELF: anachronistic, out of date, inaccurate name DfT now call 'The Black Country Railway') to Metro an agreement with Network Rail is being negotiated to ensure passive provision is made within the Metro works for future rail service use of the route. Implementation of future rail services will be subject to consultation between Network Rail and WMCA and appropriate powers and funding being secured." 

All this, when there is never a business case to cut public spending on the Police, the NHS/social care or education to pay for all this largesse.  "Don't worry your little head over it all, Tim.  You know that you will get back double whatever the final cost is because cost benefit analysis tells us so.  It is another of Mrs May's magic money tree tricks."

The money is always found for the flash, the glamorous, the most prestigious projects to hasten Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "the extinction of much of the natural world" warnings from COP24 in Poland in December 2018.