Interview
to Philip Hammond, we were saying: “We ought to start thinking of building from Scotland downwards as well because they will meet in the middle – wherever that might be”.’ Like Hammond, he sees a great future in HS2. ‘One of the things that I think will happen is that if we can get that link from Manchester/Liverpool, Leeds/ Sheffield, and Birmingham as core cities and you look at their economies and the ability for those to grow, I think you can get that northern/Midlands hub competing on a global scale,’ he says. Inskip had reached the position of deputy director
general and Metrolink project director at Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive when he left in 2006. ‘There was no bad feeling at all when I left,’ he clarifies. ‘We were in direct competition over the Transport Innovation Fund. Manchester was bidding, Centro was bidding and we used to laugh and joke among ourselves about who would get the share of the spoils. There was some discussion about whether we should work together and push government to share the spoils between the two cities.’ But, in fact, Centro pulled out, its constituent
authorities balking at the then government’s insistence on congestion charging. Last August, Inskip was appointed chairman of UK
Tram, the forum representing Britain’s nascent tram industry. Ironically, the West Midlands has always lagged slightly behind Greater Manchester on the light rail front. I have just about been forgiven for hiring an
aeroplane to tow a banner over Princess Anne’s formal opening of the first Midlands Metro line proclaiming: ‘Don’t forget Manchester’s Metrolink’. Centro blamed Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority – guests at the ceremony – for the stunt. In fact, it was my newspaper’s contribution to the campaign to fund the ‘big bang’ series of extensions. He admits to assuming that one big city would be
pretty much like another when he decided to move, but he was wrong. ‘There are a number of differences. In the West Midlands,’ he says. ‘There is a very strong, independently minded business community who know what they want. We have a lot of consultation and we spend a lot of time talking to them because they have their own list of transport priorities. The political landscape is different. I left Manchester, which was very Labour controlled, and came to an authority which was more Conservative controlled. We have Birmingham City Council, which is not the lead authority for transport like Manchester but is quite independent and knows what it wants out of transport. There were different ways of working things through and different relationships.’ Birmingham may be getting a re-vamped New
Street station, but the West Midlands is still very reliant on buses, in contrast to Greater Manchester, which is concerning itself with the Northern Hub. ‘When I first came, I didn’t realise just how strong the bus market was,’ he confesses. ‘There are 325 million journeys here and under 200 million in Manchester – and yet it’s the same size conurbation.’ In fact, so impressed is he with
the buses that he catches one to work every day from his home in the affluent suburb of Harborne. ‘It’s funny because I remember when I was deputy
director general in Manchester, people would say: “When was the last time you used the bus, Mr Inskip?” We used to have to make an effort to go and use some of the buses. I used to get the train into work from Macclesfield. ‘We’ve got professional men and professional women
on my bus into work. We’ve got lawyers, we’ve got accountants – and I know that because they are on the telephone and you overhear what they are talking about.’ You would never guess but he was actually born
in South Shields, a stone’s throw from the Sunderland origins of Neil Scales, his predecessor as chairman of PTEG. His family moved to Africa when he was three and stayed until he was 12 when his father, a university lecturer, got a job in Essex. After A levels, he went to Manchester University – and never left the city. He began work with Ernst and Young – the
accountants who today supply David Leather on secondment as Transport for Greater Manchester’s chief executive – and it was as a financial consultant that he met David Graham, the legendary GMPTE director general – widely credited as the father of the modern tramway – who hired him to look at the private sector options for delivering Manchester’s Metrolink under a Public Private Partnership. He was appointed GMPTE’s finance director in 1992 and deputy director general to Chris Mulligan in 1999. With Mulligan off work with a serious illness, which would eventually end his career, Inskip was presented by headhunters with a dilemma in 2006. He recalls: ‘At that time we, were all hoping that
Chris would get better and get back to work. As it just so happened, there were two retirements of two director generals – one in Tyne and Wear, Mike Parker, and the other was Rob Donald at Centro. ‘I always wanted the top job in one of the cities
and actually Birmingham is a big job. It is a very bus- orientated job as opposed to Manchester which was very tram oriented and I had a big role on the tramway in Manchester. I was torn, I have to say, because I had done so much work on the tram that I wanted to see it through in a way. On the other hand, if I was going to get the top job, this was the opportunity to get it.’
Curriculum vitae
1953 Born in South Shields, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1978
Accountancy degree from the University of Manchester
1988 Hired by GMPTE to look at PPP options for Manchester’s Metrolink
1992 Director of finance at GMPTE 1996 Project director for Phase 2 of Metrolink 1999 Deputy director general of GMPTE, with special responsibility for Phase 3 of Metrolink
2006 Chief executive of Centro 2011 Chair of the Passenger Transport Executive Group
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