Business News President’s Focus


This month’s President’s Focus is by Greater Birmimgham Chamber president Paul Kehoe, who takes a look back at how transportation in the UK has changed over the years – or has it? Paul thinks that at least one sector in the world of transport is locked in a time warp (the railways) and says this has to change in order to help unlock the region’s economic creativity.


I am always amazed how we never seem to learn. One generation thinks it knows better than the previous one. Take transport for example. 60 years ago, just about most cities were ripping up their electric tramlines and taking their electric trolleybuses off the streets and even closing loss-making railway lines. Bizarre then that now we are trying to find innovative solutions to the mass movement of people into our cities and investing in the very things we ripped up just 60 or so years ago. It seems strange in a country that


gave the world the iron horse that we left that lead and we are now importing most of our passenger rolling stock from overseas countries, even though they may be assembled in the UK. But then what do we expect when that technology leap of 1804, with Richard Trevithick’s first steam loco hauled a train in Penydarren, Merthyr Tydfil and father and son Stephenson’s developments, between 1825–40, from Darlington to Stockport and Manchester to Liverpool and the first intercity line to London from Birmingham (L&BR), has remained largely locked in a time warp. Time warp? That’s 24th Century


travel, isn’t it? Well not necessarily when it’s in reverse. In its day the L&BR was described as “the greatest public work ever executed in ancient or modern times” – that certainly sounds familiar. The track geometry laid down then was built for those early trains with a top speed of c.25mph. Today, we ask the eminently capable Pendolinos to do 125mph services to link Brum with capital on a line shared with the other great north-western towns and cities using that similar track geography. Progress has been made but it’s


a 200-year-old legacy and we only start building its partial replacement to be in service by 2026. For me HS2 cannot come soon enough. But here’s the challenge, what are we going to in the meantime? Well, while HS2 may not the panacea to all our transport ails, it will help, but it’s the support infrastructure that we need to build around it that may be the key to its and our region’s success.


Paul Kehoe is pictured at the controls of a newly assembled tram, at the Durmazler company in Bursa, Turkey


‘For me HS2 cannot come soon enough. But here’s the challenge, what are we going to in the meantime?’


HS2 is about unlocking the


economic potential of existing rail lines and the connecting links we make via road, rail, rapid transit, cycling or whatever other means we can to improve intra-regional connectivity. And intra-regional, cross urban connectivity is vital to the success of Birmingham, the CA area and the Midlands Engine. From the strategic down to the local, transport co-ordinated connectivity will ensure that our people can get to and from work, our goods can get to market and our streets are not clogged with unnecessary car journeys because we failed to provide top notch public transport.


The recent GBCC report on


congestion highlighted in this edition of Chamberlink (see pages 6-7) indicated that the cost burden placed on our competitiveness of our region is c.£407m per year. That’s the equivalent of each motorist paying an additional burden of nearly £1100/year. Ouch! And we all know it’s worse than that – one lousy trip can mean that Mr or Ms Inward-Investor takes umbrage and moves their business elsewhere. At last though we do have a co-


ordinated response with the CA Transport plans through TfWM and Midlands Connect, but this strategy also requires us to be joined up right across the piece.


The challenge is making sure


that the gain is worth the pain and we’ve got a lot of pain to come. However, not for a long time have we had all the local teams pointing in the same direction and now we also have a leadership programme to deliver on the transport initiatives our residents and workers are seeking. There are some quick wins and we can start to reduce the burden of the daily commute by making those journeys simpler by using smart technology, trams, trains and may be even an electric trolley bus or two and when our transport is totally integrated – road, rail and air – we will see it as a benefit, not a burden.


December 2017/January 2018 CHAMBERLINK 11


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