Minister backs Metrolink plan

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has thrown his weight behind Rochdale’s Plan B.

The £1.5 billion proposals to bring trams into Rochdale are a replacement for Greater Manchester’s bid for £3 billion of public transport improvements from the Government’s Transport Innovation Fund which floundered when a referendum voted overwhelmingly against congestion charging.

The package, which could create 21,000 jobs, will be financed by borrowing against small increases in council tax — Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority’s levy will go up by three% for the next six years raising the council tax by about £2 a year — and the Government bringing forward the Regional Fund Allocation. 

Rochdale and Greater Manchester’s nine other councils have agreed to hand over 40% of the Government money they receive individually for transport.

As a result, all but one of the stalled Metrolink extensions — to Oldham and Rochdale town centres, Chorlton, and Manchester Airport, and Rochdale and Oldham town centres — will now go ahead.

There will also be a Stockport bypass linking the airport and the A6, a redesigned version of the Mottram by-pass, a guided busway between Leigh and Manchester, a Wigan inner-relief road, park-and-ride across Greater Manchester, and more frequent bus routes in the city centre.

Lord Adonis, writing in the first edition of a Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive newsletter sent to businesses this week, says: “Greater Manchester has always been a pioneer on transport policy, as in so many areas of civic and economic life.

“Its capabilities and professionalism on transport are second to none, and it rightly has a strong voice in the national debate about infrastructure investment and quality of service provision.”

He promises that the DfT will work closely with local leaders to take the strategy forward and adds: “We have a shared vision regarding the need to build world class networks.”

Elsewhere in the newsletter, Momentum, Greater Manchester Chamber chief executive Angie Robinson writes: “In a post-recession world, high-quality local transport infrastructure will be vital to creating a vibrant economy.”

And Prof David Begg, chairman of the Northern Transport Compact, says: “Greater Manchester could still have the best transport system outside London."