‘Lessons to be learnt’ following Drake Street tram stop saga

Rochdale Council has said that lessons need to be learnt from the process which saw a planned tram stop on Drake Street removed – without effective consultation with traders.

At a meeting of the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny meeting on Thursday (28 July) it was highlighted that there was a lack of a ‘paper trail’ regarding the decision making process.

The comments refer to a report which helped the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority make the decision to delete the stop, at a meeting in March.

A report read: “Assessment work has been undertaken and it is proposed to remove the Drake Street stop and deliver the Metrolink stop at Kingsway Business Park instead. Local traders and Elected Members for the area have been consulted and are in support of this proposal.”

Councillor Wazir, speaking on behalf of himself and Councillor Mohammed Sharif, said the comments in the report presented to GMITA about traders’ agreement were “false.”

Councillor Shah Wazir suggested that GMITA was “misled” by officers from the council – he was later asked to withdraw the comments.

Later in the meeting it emerged that the line in the report about ‘elected members’ referred to the four party leaders on the council at the time. There is only evidence of written support from one leader and verbal support from another two.

The conclusion that traders supported the deletion of the stop was also ambiguous.

The Drake Street Improvement Group – that does not represent traders – was informed that the stop was ‘unlikely’ to go ahead. Information was then passed on that no objections were made. No further consultation with traders was carried out before the decision was made.

Councillors at the Overview and Scrutiny meeting who were part of the ruling party at the time said they were unaware of the suggestion that the stop be deleted.

The Leader of Rochdale Council, Councillor Colin Lambert, argued that this was because the decision was taken behind closed doors and it was only brought to light in June when he brought the issue to Cabinet because the traders said they had been lied to.

Councillor Lambert said before that stage the information had never been public and never gone to a committee.

Executive Director of Rochdale Borough Council, Andy Zuntz, hit back at the suggestion that he or any other officer had “misled” GMITA.

He said whilst he was “keen to shed light on the issue” he was “uncomfortable” with the term “officer misled” because it questioned his “integrity.”

He admitted that lessons must be learnt but said he had only acted in “good faith.”