£30m Midland Metro plan put on hold
Wednesday 26th May 2010, 9:00PM BST.
Plans to spend more than £30 million to extend the Midland Metro into Wolverhampton city centre are going back to the drawing board.
The Department for Transport faces £683m in cuts.
The move is due under the coalition government, and city regeneration chiefs said they had to put the plan “on the back burner”.
Transport chiefs had been given leave to apply for the funding by the former Labour government in July last year and are still drawing up their business case.
They are now revising the circular route trams are set to take in a bid to make it more attractive to the new government.
Wolverhampton City Council’s Conservative regeneration boss Councillor Paddy Bradley confirmed today: “The Metro is on the back burner. The money was going to come from the Government but it is extremely difficult at the moment.”
Centro spokesman Steve Swingler said the transport authority was still developing its business case and working towards achieving the funding.
He said: “We expect to announce the preferred route later in the summer.”
The Wolverhampton loop would see trams go beyond the current St George’s terminus in the city centre, along Princess Street, down Lichfield Street and link up with the new £22.5m bus station currently under construction in Pipers Row before coming back to St George’s.
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pointless plan anyway. Pump the money in developing the city’s image. The inner city isn’t big enough to put a tram round it.
Start by demolishing broad street
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Shame. Than metro seems to work well and is packed during rush hour. Hello tramboy.
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I wonder if the pointless extension that was proposed around Bham city centre will go ahead?
Probably.
Since being classed as part of the created area called the ‘West Midlands’, Wolverhampton has lost out time and time again to Birmingham.
Not only Wolverhampton, but all the other regional towns that were once well established, independent centres.
The sooner local taxing powers are devolved to local authorities, the better. Finally Wolverhampton can try and start attracting some new businesses (and people).
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Remind me how much is being spent to extend into Bimingham city centre.
If any government were serious about getting people out of cars and onto public transport they would invest massively in building metro systems and then subsidise fares.
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Well i’m happy with this decision the metro being linked to a bus station?
Whats the benefit, all that would happen is people would get the bus from their local area to W-ton then hop on the metro elsewhere eg B’Ham.
That would be a massive loss the the already struggling economy of w-ton!!!
Besides the point that its only a few streets walk anyway for those that really want the bus and metro!!!
W-ton needs massive investment in its retail image and public service offerings!!! (Not to mention cheaper parking!!!)
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All this metro schemes should have been built years ago, when Nottingham, Sheffield, Croydon, Newcatle & Manchester were getting theirs.
Why was the 2nd biggest population centre in the UK ignored then for this sort of investment?
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Of course a more sensible route would be more attractive and would probably cost less.
How about extending the route from Priestfield to Low Level Station and then up Broad to the ring road passing through the existing railway bridge… Then close one half of the ring road and make this section two way and run the trams along the other side alongside the bus station… with an interchange… and then passing under the ring road at that accident prone island junction… through the sunken gardens within the island…eliminating the section from the ring road to Bilston Road and eliminating the ugly bridge and the accident zone.
This project could then be justified on the grounds of safety. Surely that would move it up the priority list?
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So that’s £30m for what looks like about 500 metres
of tram line with no significant engineering works.
Are they planning to lay gold rails?
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