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Passenger transport authorities demand assurances on Northern Hub planning


package if we are going to achieve the four-to-one cost benefit it promises. ‘We are not going to go down the route of prioritising. That is very dangerous.’ And he said that passenger transport authorities across the north are ‘completely unanimous’ about the need to carry out the work as a package. ‘We are not going to be trapped by a prioritisation exercise.’


The scheme will deliver capacity


for 700 extra services across the north of England, a further 3.5 million passengers a year and faster, more frequent services linking eight city regions together across the Pennines. Councillor Fender’s warning, as


by Alan Salter


Authorities and businesses across the north of England are demanding government commitment to the Northern Hub package of rail improvements as a whole. They are worried by recent


remarks by rail minister Theresa Villiers suggesting that officials may unpick Network Rail’s £560m plan to free up the bottleneck around Manchester and approve or reject individual parts.


She told the Northern Rail Conference last month: ‘Affordability issues will need careful consideration, and it will be necessary to make a judgment on the different components individually. This is unlikely to be an “all-or-nothing” decision.’ Councillor Andrew Fender, chairman of Transport for Greater Manchester, said: ‘We have met with Theresa Villiers and put to her very strongly that the whole of the north of England needs the Northern Hub as a complete


his authority approved its rail policy for the next 15 years – produced with DfT encouragement – comes after Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce wrote to new transport secretary Justine Greening demanding that the scheme goes ahead in its entirety and asking to meet her.


Chris Fletcher, director of policy


at the chamber, said: ‘Theresa Villiers alluded to the prospect of the core elements of the Northern Hub being assessed individually. Our view is that this is not acceptable and the whole package has to be delivered as a single, unbroken scheme not in a piecemeal fashion. ‘The potential benefits are huge.’


n alan.salter@railpro.co.uk


Metrolink fares to rise by six per cent n


Fares on Manchester’s Metrolink light rail network will increase by around six per cent, on average, next January. Members of Transport for


Greater Manchester agreed a RPI + 1 formula, rejecting a Tory move to freeze fares because of the financial crisis. Metrolink director Philip


Purdy said the increase would cover increases in operating costs


PAGE 8 DECEMBER 2011


and support the massive expansion programme. Fine details of the increases were discussed behind closed doors but only after Conservatives on the committee failed to win support for a bid to hold fares at their present level. Salford councillor Brian Garrido said families faced real hardship with pay freezes and redundancy. ‘We are all in dire straits,’ he said.


Driverless Underground proposals


provoke mixed reactions


Proposals for a driverless Underground, backed by London Assembly Conservative Group transport spokesman, Richard Tracey, have been branded by the RMT union as: ‘brainless, dangerous, fantastically expensive’, and as ‘massive attacks… on terms and conditions and job security’. Backing a report proposing


to introduce driverless trains, presented to the TfL board in November, Tracey said that he had been seen as a maverick when he first suggested using driverless technology on the Tube. ‘A driverless Underground would deliver safe, fast and efficient mass transit for London. It would usher in a step change in the way we get about our capital city and it should be embraced. It can’t come soon enough,’ he added. Tracey cited examples of


new and old metro systems in cities around the world, running driverless trains, commenting: ‘It’s nothing particularly revolutionary in London either; the DLR has been driverless since the 1980s and the Victoria, Central and Jubilee are all highly automated where drivers no longer actually drive the trains.’ But RMT general secretary


There will be no increases to


weekend, family or child tickets. TfGM chairman Councillor Andrew Fender said it would be ‘downright wrong’ to pay for Metrolink by cutting funds for other forms of transport. ‘For passengers, there is no


ideal time to increase fares but any change will always be the least it can be to meet growing costs,’ he said.


Bob Crow responded by comparing the proposals to a system used in the USA, where nine people were killed when it malfunctioned. ‘We need no more evidence of what happens when cuts-led automation and changes to maintenance are imposed from above than the tragedy on the Washington DC Red Line in June 2009.’ The November issue of RMT members’ magazine Up Front launches an impassioned tirade against the proposals, declaring: ‘If realised, these plans will be a direct attack on your job.’


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