Trams could run along disused freight railway tracks in the Black Country in a bid keep the £388 million expansion dreams alive, it emerged today.
Hopes of bringing 5,000 jobs to the region by extending the tram system into Brierley Hill and further into Wolverhampton were in tatters last week after a decision on congestion charges.
Councillors had refused to force congestion charging on the region in exchange for government funding for the expansion.
The money was offered as part of the £2 billion Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) but would only have been available after councils had started a trial form of congestion charging.
Possible ways of keeping the expansion alive could see the Stourbridge-Walsall-Lichfield freight line brought back after more than 20 years of running the Metro between Wednesbury and Brierley Hill.
And the councils might be able to raise some of the money for themselves by selling vacant land which would be worth more to developers if it had Metro tracks running alongside it.
Councillor Roger Lawrence, leader of Wolverhampton City Council, said today: “The business rates go straight to central government and so we will point this out and ask for appropriate funding.
“All indications are that this would bring a substantial boost to the economy.
“Wolverhampton was not going to get its part of the extension until phase two under the plans for the TIF.
“But with our Interchange project we might be able to get the funding for that sooner so that people can take a tram right up to the railway station.”
Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell councils have asked the Black Country Consortium to come up with ideas. Chief executive Sarah Middleton said: “The leaders have made a clear restatement of their desire to see the development of the Midland Metro go ahead.”
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12 Comments
I don’t see how bringing a tram into Brierley Hill will create 5000 more jobs, it may bring more shoppers
into the Merry Hill Centre, but it will just take more trade from other towns. Why not improve existing
public transport links?
and on the agenda of tonights council meeting how can we screw the public to pay for this
i do so hope that this project never gets off the drawing board who in there right minds wants to take more shoppers from the likes of wednesbury and others to merry hill i can guess who is lobbying for it to built come on councilors try to see a little further than your noses
Why not just run passenger trains instead?
They would provide a much more useful service, and would cost £50 million less.
And if they can’t find the money, why not wind up the stupid Black Country Consortium instead? I’m sure it would save a few million.
The Midland Metro will never work properly until there is a network of lines covering the region. Then people might be tempted to take public transport on a regular basis.
The council are to be commended for not giving into the blackmail demands of the government to introduce congestion charging in exhange for funding the metro.
What kind of government are in power where they resort to blackmailing their own constituents?
More work - thats brill [as long as the vandals keep away of course] !!!
What evidence is there that people want to travel in large numbers between Walsall & Brierley Hill? I suspect this route would in fact be very damaging to Walsall.
Had the Railway tunnel in Dudley not been destroyed by the WM vandals then the cost of restoring passenger services would be far less.
Pound foolish again.
Re-opening the railway line through Dudley as part of the Midland Metro will be excellent. It’s been on the agenda almost since the day of the line’s closure back in 1993, and we were supposed to have had trams up and running by 2006. This would ease the rising congestion on local roads and attract more people to places like the Merry Hill Centre.
All this talk of trams being ‘Shopper’s Specials’ to Merry Hill is very misguided. Brierley Hill is going to be massively redeveloped in the coming years which will draw in jobs and opportunities to improve people’s lives. There isn’t demand at present for people to travel from Walsall to Brierely Hill as there are no opportunities and it’s a hellish journey. Create jobs, put in decent, direct public transport and the equation is completed. If other areas are worried, then perhaps they need to raise their game. After all, Dudley has made a pretty good go reinventing Round Oak steelworks!
Well said alex the only sensible coment so far.
people can only see to thier own ends, has anyone given it a thought that,so we are told oil and fuel
will run out leaving only one form of power, electricty, which trams run on.
it would be far cheaper to use existing dis-used train lines that were obviously earmarked for this purpose
a number of years ago.
Yes, the Metro will mean more trade for Merry Hill, that is why it is a bad thing.
If the Metro is scrapped, Merry Hill will not be allowed to expand, which means it will reduce the amount of damage it does.
Making it more difficult for people to shop at Merry Hill means more trade for proper towns, benefiting real, worthwhile communities.
Dudley needs a proper railway station. It needs the Metro like a hole in the head.