The man with the tram plan

David Leather

The chief architect of Rochdale’s future transport plans is staying in post to see them through.

David Leather joined Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) in 2006 as interim chief executive on a six-month secondment from consultants Ernst and Young.

But two separate attempts to find a permanent replacement — at a salary of £200,000 — have failed and now he has agreed to stay for at least another two years.

When he finally moves on, he will have been in post for more than five and a half years — which has led to him agreeing to drop interim from his title.

“We have decided that now it would be better for me to stay because we are half way through a massive investment programme,” he said.

“It is a great opportunity and my partners at Ernst and Young have agreed that I should see it through.”

That investment will total £1.5 billion and will pay for Metrolink lines to Rochdale and Oldham town centres, Manchester Airport, Ashton and a second city centre tram line; a cross-city bus package, a Leigh–Salford–Manchester busway; park and ride sites; interchanges at Altrincham and Bolton; a Mottram bypass with a Glossop spur; an Ashton Northern bypass; and a Wigan inner relief road.

The money will be raised through the Greater Manchester Transport Fund, a mixture of government grants and borrowing — the alternative to the £3 billion which the Government’s Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) would have provided, had a referendum last December voted yes to congestion charging.

Rochdale residents voted by 61,686 to 17,333 against and Mr Leather says: “If you ask anybody if they want an increase in tax, you can’t be surprised if they say no.

“Once it went to a referendum, I knew that it was going to be difficult,” he admitted.

Promoters of the TIF bid insisted throughout their campaign that there was no Plan B.

Mr Leather still says there was not.

“I don’t like calling the new programme Plan B because that suggests there were two plans and that isn’t the case.

“But there were a lot of transport schemes which were developed for TIF and which had been approved by the DfT — and that helped us do the work on the Greater Manchester Transport Fund. It took five months to draw up.”

The work on the transport schemes could be finished by 2016, but Mr Leather insists that the dates are only “indicative” as they will follow Government approvals and the procurement process.

“Control and influence over some of the funding is held locally, by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority, the levy and Metrolink fares,” he said. “We are fairly confident that they are more recession proof than funding which is subject to central government funding.”

Rochdale’s train operator, Northern, has done a tremendous job with the growth of patronage on its services, he says.

“The problem is the lack of rail capacity at peak times and that is controlled by the government. If we got those additional rail carriages, Northern’s level of performance would improve.”

But he adds: “We would like to be more closely involved in the franchise process. We think we can bring much more local focus. We would like to influence how performance is measured, and the penalties for failing to achieve that performance.”

And he insists that Manchester’s Victoria Station — dubbed the country’s worst in a report — has a bright future.

“The stations report has been quite helpful to us in that it has got Network Rail more focused in helping to find a solution to the Victoria Station problem. I am meeting the finance director of Network Rail and we are talking to the North West Regional Develoment Agency about potential European funding. We believe there is a way forward.”

GMPTE is leaner and meaner since his arrival, though his aim, he says, was to “build a team of people who enjoy coming to work and have fun in carrying out their roles — but also focusing on providing the best public transport possible for the people of Greater Manchester. I wanted us to be much more customer-focused.

“An example is the Metrolink work in the city centre. The programme was drawn up very much from an engineering perspective so we changed it so that it caused the least inconvenience to passengers rather than easiest to deliver or the least cost, and that meant a big change.”

The 45-year-old father-of-three was finance director and deputy chief executive of Manchester 2002, the company set up to run the Commonwealth Games.

He moved to Manchester Airport as finance director before joining Ernst & Young. When he leaves the PTE, he says, he will look for “another large challenging project”.

GMITA chairman Councillor Keith Whitmore said: “Many challenges lie ahead but, with David’s leadership, together we have made an excellent start and we can look forward to building on this to ensure that transport is at the forefront of the city regional agenda in the challenging times ahead.”