adrenochrome

This month, the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester held a referendum on proposed improvements to the transport infrastructure of the city, some paid for via grants, others from a central government loan. The cost to the public of this loan was the introduction of two congestion charging zones, pay-to-drive at peak times. The outcome seems to have surprised nobody, the Manchester Evening News has been full of quotes from councillors, government ministers and business leaders saying that despite their best efforts, the result was anticipated. For those outside Greater Manchester, the public rejected the Labour government and councils plans by a 4-1 majority, despite Geoff Hoon’s insistance that there would be no ‘Plan B’ and that the government loan would become available to other cities. As Greater Manchester is the last metropolitan province controlled by Labour, I wish him luck trying to convince other cities to sell their souls.

With the result known, the plan binned, and no plan B; it is time to look into what happened, and what went wrong.

From a budget of £34m set aside, over £18m has been spent on the TIF bid, including £3m on public consultancy. If the result was a foregone conclusion, and ‘no surprise’, then why continue with the process? Simple, New Labour has a dream of introducing congestion charging across the UK, and does not EVER listen to the electorate. They treat the public with a contempt that would have made Margaret Thatcher blush.

When Manchesters Metrolink was first opened, the people were told that this was just stage 1, with expansion planned to the airport, Salford Quays and more outskirt towns. Of course, I was  just a teenager living in Altrincham then. When Labour came to power, Gordon Brown promised to make savings in government and channel these new funds into projects across the country. Manchester was promised expansion of the Metrolink to Rochdale and Oldham, and to the airport, by Transport Secretary Stephen Byers. When Mr Byers resigned in shame, his replacement, Alistair Darling (yes, our current Treasurer) twice repeated Mr Byers promise, before cancelling the whole project. Thrice promised, never delivered. Finally, we are told that we can have what had been promised for over 20 years, but only if we accepted a comgestion charge zone 10 times larger than Londons. In return, we would receive nearly £2.75billion in funding, though £1.2bn would be in a 30 year loan. Compare this with the £5.8bn the government spent on St Pancras station in London, in order to reduce the journey time from London to Paris by a meagre 20 minutes!

It should also be mentioned that over 30 private consultancies were paid £6.5m to help research and draw up plans for the bid. Just think what that money could have done for schools in Greater Manchester.

As for the contempt shown by government, this seems to have been echoed throughout the process by these agencies; most notably, Creative Concerns apparent belief that Northerners are too ugly and unphotogenic, using photographs of Americans on their leaflets. Even at the last minute, these agencies continued to prove themselves unworthy of tax-payers money, when one even breached election rules, and another wasted £230,000 on a TV ad campaign that breached Ofcom rules.

Basically, New Labour has been caught lying too many times, and even the traditional Labour heartland no longer trusts them. This was reflected in the rule breaking by the agencies selected to sell the charge to the public.

It is easy to have 20:20 vision in hindsight, and to criticize without coming up with any valid alternatives, which is why I shall be proposing steps that could be taken to improve the bid, to address the concerns of business and the individual, and to improve transport throughout the district. Unfortunately, you shall have to wait till tomorrow for that.

Have  a great weekend, and congratulations to Lee ‘Evil’ McEvilly on his brace of goals against Shrewsbury, opening his account during his third spell at Spotland.

(Thanks to the Manchester Evening News and The Times for the figures quoted above.)

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