How do we stop the Midlands - centre of Britain's transport network - from grinding from a halt? Insider invited five experts in the field, representing air, road and rail, to address a business audience on how we can avoid the jams.
Airports are of strategic importance to the West Midlands. Should their ownership therefore reside within the public sector?
John Froggat Well, we were originally owned by local authorities, who then sold us to National Express, who then sold us to a company owned by the local authorities. I think airports can grow and thrive whoever they're owned by. I think it's impossible to divorce yourself from the people around you. We can be positive for the economy, yet negative for the environment, whoever we're owned by.
Joe Kelly Birmingham International Airport is limited by public sector borrowing - I don't think that's a secret to anyone here.
Simon Russell - But, with the greatest respect, Joe, the region needs certainty. Birmingham International Airport (BIA) needs to show that it is committed to the success of the wider regional economy, doesn't it?
Kelly The private sector is a substantial stakeholder in the airport. Of course the private model allows airports to grow and all airports need to make returns. But that model is not set in stone, it needs to be revisited from time to time to make sure it is performing. We have plans to grow, but we're operating in a volatile market.
We're now looking to invest £3135m in BIA. We don't know what state the sale discussions are in - that's a private matter between those who are selling and those looking to buy. Our concern is that the new owner buys into our expansion plans and our masterplan.
Joe, what is the level of interest in the sale of BIA?
Kelly It's early days. We really can't say too much yet. There is no shortlist. I have a strong belief in this airport and we don't want to relinquish its reputation as a gateway to the city and beyond. But we do have to have a social conscience and we have to be sustainable. We have lower night movement at Birmingham and we do want to direct money back into the local community.
The previous ownership model worked in its time, but that doesn't mean it'll work in the future. Manchester is a successful airport that is owned by the council and which hasn't suffered as a result. I don't see the 49 per cent still owned by the councils as an encumbrance to private investors. The councils have a masterplan of the way that they think the airport should go. Their involvement is a good thing - their investments will help the airport grow in a sustainable way.
Peter Leppard Having lived through the Railtrack era - which all of my colleagues on the railways found unusual and uncomfortable - Network Rail is a better place to be. There is no desire within the rail industry to go back to the days of Railtrack.
Ian Baxter There are badly-managed private companies and there are badly-managed local authorities. There's no reason why we should impose restrictions on the private sector. The model BIA has is good.
Martin Chambers I think the private sector is the right way to go, but we have to balance that with a level of corporate and social responsibility. However, we have to accept that air travel is a way of life these days.
Joe, how is the expansion of the runway coming along?
Kelly We haven't applied for planning application for lengthening the runway yet. It'll be submitted later in the year. It's only for 400m of runway, but that short length will cost another £3100m. At present we're restricted from reaching the west coast of the US, the Far East, in India and China.
Froggat For the last two years we've been owned by Manchester Airport and the local authority.
I don't think local authority ownership means a lack of investment.
Malcolm Gloster. How do we create an efficient integrated regional transport infrastructure while being mindful of the effect of carbon emissions on climate change? Should we care?
Chambers We have to start making long-term plans and making some tough decisions rather than looking at short term, easy fixes.
Baxter I think one of the problems is that we fail to develop regional-wide ideas. On one of the things we suffer from in Nottingham is that plans are made at a city level, then the region. We need to build strong links with the city upwards to the regional level to tackle the lack of strategic thinking and investment. What we have at the moment is extremely disjointed. We also need greater involvement from interested parties not only from my own sector, but also air and rail if we're to develop a coherent strategy. I run one of the biggest transport businesses in the East Midlands and I've never been asked my opinion. Taxes need to be coupled with investment in public transport.
Kelly Should we care? I think we should. Carbon emissions are an unpleasant fact of life in transport and we need to handle them. But as much as anything it's an issue for the political establishment to set the agenda.
Froggat We're part of a global economy and transport is the glue that holds it together. If we were to put a stop to all CO2 emissions what would that do to the way we live? That doesn't mean we ignore CO2 emissions, but how we combat them is a political issue and it needs to be tackled globally. It's pointless to have a policy for one nation when air travel, by its nature, is international.
Leppard Of course we should care. Other European cities are fare better organised in the way that they handle emissions by integrating trams and buses. We're a long way from that, but I believe the idea is slowly starting to be taken seriously in government. The approach here is to spend as little as possible on public transport - look at the spend in European cities and it's usually larger by an order of magnitude.
David Lloyd-Jones - Ten years ago John Prescott was promising a ten-year integrated transport policy. Little if anything has changed. With pressure on the public purse, what chance is there of investment in a region-wide alternative transport system to the car? We need joined up thinking, what's stopping this?
Baxter Nottingham has its tram system, which has been hailed as a success, but the government won't commit itself to support a second phase of expansion. Nottingham is a good micro-level example of what's wrong with the government's approach to transport. Ten years ago I was at a lunch in London and Glenda Jackson was speaking. The government was interested in moving freight back onto the canals. Most people in the audience laughed. And I think that's the problem; the government doesn't understand transport and it has to be more positive. There is an opportunity to have a great debate on the future of transport in this country, but there is less potential to put the plans into action. We simply don't have the time to stall endlessly. Shanghai might not be democratic, but it's amazing. There are some real lessons to be learned from China because they get things done.
Leppard I think we all agree that we need to get more people onto public transport. These are the circumstances in Birmingham as much as anywhere else and it's the right way to go. But it has to be carefully handled.
Froggat We have to look at what is the alternative to public transport. The fact of the matter is that it's people spending more and more time sat in cars.
Baxter I've heard a lot about a Nottingham congestion charge, but what I want to know is where it's going to apply. If our freight terminal is within the boundaries of the congestion charge then we're going to have to move, so it's a massive issue. I think the technology is there to make road pricing work, but people need to face up to the costs. London is unique in the UK when it comes to public transport, but in the rest of the country there is deep scepticism towards congestion charges. What we need are financial incentives to cut congestion and that might mean working at off-peak hours. I'm open to debate, but I remain suspicious because I fear that, once again, road freight might become the whipping boy.
Obviously there's much more traffic through New Street Station now than was foreseen when the facility was built. Improvement to the station is likely to bring even more traffic through the station. How do you intend to deal with associated congestion problems and access problems that this will cause?
Chambers Gateway is all about creating multi-modal solutions. In the long term it relies on a tram line down Stevenson Street and channelling buses away from the Metro. We really need to keep people and cars apart. New Street Station is interesting in that most people don't drive to it or from it, so what we want to do is provide permeability. New Street is a big concrete blot on the landscape of Birmingham, but we want permeability so that people travelling there on foot can get round it better, because at the moment it's impossible.
Gateway will open in 2011 and we aim to treble capacity by 2013. We've calculated that we won't reach capacity at New Street until the middle of the century.
Leppard The West Coast main line between Manchester and London has done extremely well since it was revamped and we've taken on quite a number of air travellers in that time. If the increase in passengers continues then we estimate we'll run out of capacity within ten years. We're agnostic to the Eddington Report at best, but we believe that the West Coast main line will bite us first.
Chambers The way to make the Metro more successful is to actually get it on the street and not use a railway track with tiny boxes for people to travel in. Let people see what they're travelling on and they'll travel on it. Look at Manchester and Nottingham, both of which have proper trams.
Richard Goodall - What is the panel's view on Birmingham City Council's inactivity in developing and implementing an effective tram or rapid transport system that links the city centre with the outlying areas and the airport, which would ultimately help ease the daily congestion on our roads as evidenced by the recent gridlock caused by a flurry of snow?
Kelly We mustn't see the Metro as the answer to all our public transport problems. For example it won't make much sense to run a service from Birmingham International to New Street as a tram would take 35 minutes, while a train takes ten. Metro does have an important role, but it is only part of the jigsaw.
Chambers It's obvious that many of us feel frustrated over the rate of progress of the Metro systems in the Midlands. Birmingham is painfully slow compared with what has been achieved in, say, Manchester.
Birmingham is closer than many to getting a working system, but not close enough. Nottingham looks set to progress, but how many years will that take?
Baxter This issue affects everything from my business to school-run mums. People should be willing to pay for the vehicle journeys they make. But we just can't force people off the roads until we have viable alterative forms of transport and that's what we lack in our cities. The government talks about public transport, but it does so in a very half-hearted way.