Can Midland Metro get back on track in 2023?

Since the first stretch of tram line opened between Wolverhampton and Birmingham in 1999 it has always had its fair share of critics.

And 2022 provided them with plenty of ammunition.

For its proponents, including West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, trams are THE environmentally friendly way to travel, connecting parts of the region that may not be particularly well served by other forms of public transport.

Local leaders hoped 2022 would be a big year of progression for tram travel in the region, which had largely been propped up by government subsidies during the pandemic.

But for weeks on end during the past 12 months, trams were clean, green and rarely seen due to services being hit by a wide variety of problems and setbacks.

As the year turned, services were suspended due to a long-running issue with cracks in a number of CAF Urbos 3 trams, and while a full service resumed in February, the revival proved to be short lived.

By mid-March another suspension was in place after more cracks were found in the Spanish-made vehicles, prompting bosses to take the whole fleet out of action.

It later emerged that similar issues had led to the same make of trams being withdrawn in France and Serbia, while Sydney’s inner west light rail service was reportedly decommissioned in its entirety due to “design flaws” in wheel arches.

The situation – described at the time as “deeply frustrating” by Mr Street – did not start to improve until June when limited services resumed, and it took until mid-July for a full service to be back on track after extensive repairs.

But Mr Street’s claim that the service had reached a “turning point” took a major hit in October when Unite announced drivers were to walk out for 53 days of strike action over pay.

Following a number of strikes in October and November a pay increase of 20 per cent was agreed last month – meaning at least a full service would be up and running over the festive period.

The year 2022 was supposed to see the Metro expanded, with new sections of line set to improve connectivity and open up services to more passengers.

But while the delayed route from Birmingham to Edgbaston finally opened in July, the Wolverhampton city centre extension has still not been completed.

The stretch of track – which runs down Pipers Row and links the St George’s tram stop with the railway station – can be viewed as an example of how not to manage an infrastructure project.

Having been granted formal approval in 2016 at a cost of £18m, the extension has been dogged by delays almost from the moment preparatory work started the following January.

Services that were due to start in 2019 were pushed back to 2020 due to works on the railway station. Then the pandemic hit and more delays were announced.

A pledge to have services running in time for this year’s Commonwealth Games in the region came to nothing, prompting furious city council leader Ian Brookfield to brand the situation “an absolute disgrace”.

And things got worse, with the next deadline of autumn passing, before an announcement in October that the completion had been pushed back again – this time until spring 2023 – as a result of “unforeseen supply chain constraints”.

The delays to the scheme – which earlier this year was projected to cost £35m – have resulted in a significant increase to its budget.

According to Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), issues including inflationary pressures and supply chain delays have contributed to costs rising by more than £10m.

All told the final bill will be around the £50 million mark – an astonishing figure for just 700 metres of track.

The entire scheme is now the subject of an independent investigation after it was deemed to have breached financial regulations.

The only shard of light is that were the extension operating it would be largely pointless anyway as a link to the railway station – because at the moment it is almost impossible to rely on a train running regularly.

But while work crawls along at a snail’s pace in Wolverhampton on an extension few can see the benefit of, an even bigger debacle is unfolding elsewhere in the region.

Local leaders were hanging out the bunting back in February when 300 metres of track was laid on Castle Hill – the first section of the 6.8-mile route to be completed.

However, as the year rolled on it emerged there were serious problems with the funding of the scheme, which was given a budget of £449m when it was approved in 2019.

In July the Express & Star revealed the cost of the scheme had ballooned to £550 million, leading to council leaders on the West Midlands Combined Authority board voting to mothball phase two of the line from Dudley to Brierley Hill.

Then earlier this month the prospect of the line being completed in full started to look even more distant, after Dudley Council’s audit and standards committee concluded the line beyond Dudley was “extremely likely” to be delayed or scrapped.

Put simply, a funding shortfall of at least £300m needs to be met urgently if any genuine progress is to be made in 2023.

But with funding from both central government and the private sector in short supply amid a perilous global financial climate, bosses know they have their work cut out to plug such a huge gap.

The Birmingham Eastside extension, which will serve the HS2 station at Curzon Street, is also well behind schedule, with delays seeing its projected cost soar £90m to £227m. It is worth remembering that prior to Covid, tram usage in the region had been on the rise, with passenger journeys increasing dramatically by 14 per cent to eight million in 2019-20.

But just 3.4m journeys were taken the following year due to the lockdown, and although no official figures have been published for the period since, services have been down too frequently for things to recover.

The stated aim of West Midlands Metro is to increase passenger numbers to 30 million a year by 2030, at which point bosses expect turnover to rise from £12m to £50m.

After the chaos of 2022, the only way is up.