MERSEY REVIEW: LIVERPOOL TRAM ROW
The tale of a tram - after a wrangle over routes that threatened to derail the plans once and for all, is the city back on track?
GET A GRIP!
Liverpool's tram row explained. The city's big hitters have been throwing their toys around. but the scrapping nearly ended the game. kevin gopal reports
There are no doubt perfectly good legal reasons in this digital age why major infrastructure bids have to be delivered as hard copy - boxloads of the stuff. There's also no denying that this somewhat dated approach offers the kind of photo opportunity that simply pressing the send button to transmit an electronic version couldn't rival.
Thus besuited representatives of the Merseyside Express Tramway (MET) consortium arrived at law firm DLA at 11pm on 19 October to deliver its bid to build and run lines one and two of Merseytram - just one hour before the deadline imposed by DLA's client, passenger transport authority Merseytravel. What was remarkable though was not the number of boxes nor the lateness of the hour but that the bid arrived at all.
In the month leading up to 19 October, a row over the route of line two of Merseyside's tram system had threatened to scupper the whole project. Liverpool City Council's last-minute suggestion that line two should run out to Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) rather than through Knowsley to Whiston Hospital prompted the consortia bidding for both lines, MET and M-Tram, to request an extension to the deadline. Then M-Tram pulled out. Then MET asked for a further extension until the council confirmed reports of a climbdown. It wouldn't have been surprising if those boxes had never arrived.
The row started on 17 September when the council's executive board sprung its suggestion to change line two. The revised route, it said, would support the airport's strong growth as well as benefiting the people of Speke, one of the country's most deprived wards. A fair argument except that it emerged only days before the deadline for the two rival bids when it could have come at any time since 1999, when Liverpool and the four surrounding districts that make up Merseytravel - Knowsley, Wirral, Sefton and St Helens - agreed Merseytram's three routes in their local transport plan.
The new proposals sparked an unholy public row. Labour-dominated Merseytravel, supported by local Labour MPs, accused the council of jeopardising not only line two but the £3220 m line one - from the city centre to Kirkby - since the winning bidder was expected to be responsible for both lines. There was £3170m of government funding agreed for line one, in addition to European Union Objective One money.
Mark Dowd, chairman of Merseytravel, said there was a "political problem" with the Liberal Democrat council. "It makes us all look stupid." George Howarth, Labour MP for Knowsley North and Sefton East, questioned whether the council had ever fully supported Merseytram - the council had lodged but then withdrawn its objections to line one at the public inquiry.
Speaking to Insider at the time, Jim Lawless, bid director of M-Tram, which was led by Serco, said the reworked proposals were feasible - just - but gave some hint of what was to come when he said the deadline extension did not give the consortium enough time to rework its proposals as that would have involved re-calculating operational costs as well as capital costs.
In the meantime, the council showed signs of backing down. All it was doing, it said, was playing its full part in the line two consultation process and no more. Mike Storey, council leader, claimed that the interests of Merseytravel and the city were not fully aligned but pledged to "bang heads together" if the problem turned out to a personality clash between Merseytravel chief executive Neil Scales and council chief executive Sir David Henshaw. (Cutting his chief executive adrift did not impress Howarth. "Ultimately Henshaw's authority comes from Storey.") And on 6 October the council did back down, issuing a press release saying that if its proposals jeopardised the project everyone should continue working to the old plans.
That was too late for M-Tram and, as Lawless had earlier suggested, the consortium did not bid. Affordable and doable, he repeated, but too risky in the timeframe given. Serco preferred to concentrate on the area's trains - as part of Serco-Nedrailways it is successfully operating Merseyrail Electrics Network on a 25-year lease.
Mike Flynn, director of MET, composed of operator Keolis, designer Parsons Brinkerhoff and contractor Balfour Beatty, was also in doubt. Rather than respond to a press release, he asked for a further extension until after the council's next executive board meeting, on 15 October. At that meeting, the board formally withdrew its proposals, paving the way for the stream of boxes that arrived at DLA four days later.
For the moment, the content of those boxes is remaining under wraps until they have been fully studied by Merseytravel - although Flynn confirms that they do contain proposals to postpone building part of the city centre loop until after Capital of Culture in 2008 so that the September 2007 deadline for the rest of line one can be met.
Did MET consider pulling out as well? "We looked very hard at the situation," says Flynn. "It is important that all the stakeholders are behind the project if it is to be successful in such as tight timeframe. We are satisfied that they are and are delighted to bid - on budget."
Peter Millea, responsible for transport as the council's executive member for regeneration, and also a member of Merseytravel, insists the council was doing nothing more than responding to Merseytravel's request for consultation on line two, even though that period started as early as the middle of July. The council felt the economic case for a route to the airport - also linking people in Halewood in Knowsley with jobs in Speke-Garston - was stronger.
He says: "I really cannot accept the accusation that the council is anti-tram. When we needed supplementary planning guidance for line one I got that through the council without any significant opposition. There was unanimous LibDem support. That gave them an opportunity, if they really wanted to do as a group, to hold up progress on the tram. But they didn't.
"In order to seek the views of Merseytravel before we submitted the resolution to the executive board, Sir David Henshaw emailed Neil Scales a week before on 10 September to say here's what we are minded to suggest, would this cause you a problem? We didn't get a reply. So Merseytravel was aware of what we were intending to do; it wasn't dropped on them like a bombshell."
But that would only have given everyone an extra week to consider such considerable changes.
"Well, if Neil had responded to our email we wouldn't have done it. I think the climate of chaos and confusion was created more by Merseytravel than ourselves by the manner in which they went to the press and the radio and produced letters from Serco and all the rest saying this is what's going to happen if the city council doesn't do this, that and the other."
But with Millea insisting that he had made the case for the airport route as early as the mid-1990s, why had he not raised the issue earlier, perhaps when the Northwest Regional Development Agency came out in support of a route to the airport in October 2003, perhaps at Merseytravel's annual performance reports of 2003 and 2004? Millea says the annual performance report is not a decision-making forum, whereas the city council and Merseytravel are.
Millea isn't clear on whether there was another avenue he could have explored earlier. "The point is this: we had a letter from Merseytravel saying we are currently consulting on line two, will you send us your views? So that's all we did."
He adds that line two, unlike line one, hasn't been agreed by the Government Office for the North West and won't be until December at the earliest so the council cannot be held responsible for holding up what is as yet only a concept, not a formal proposition. To which a critical reply might be why did the council demand that line one, a reality, was combined with line two, a concept, when the bids were invited.
Millea suggests the council was made a scapegoat for M-Tram's failure to bid even though the consortium's main financial backer, Mitsubishi, had pulled out in the summer. Lawless denies this, pointing out that that the consortium made it clear in August that, as a result of Mitsubishi's withdrawal, it would only be bidding for the operations and maintenance aspects.
Millea also extends his criticisms to central government. Transport minister Charlotte Atkins added her voice to the row when she accused the council of "dithering" but the real dithering, according to Millea, is on the part of the Department for Transport, which on one hand has promised £3170m for line one but on the other feels unable to give it the formal go-ahead until December at the earliest, even though the public inquiry threw up no major objectors.
"To me that's three months too late. If it gets the nod, it means construction cannot begin until April next year, when really, if we wanted to meet the target completion date of 14 September 2007, it was imperative we began in January 2005.
"So we are requesting yet again that the government makes an immediate decision to enable us to go ahead as soon as possible. I think if they make that decision now we could get construction up and running at the end of January, beginning of February. Those two or three months could be critical in delivering."
Storey might want to reconsider his comments that Merseytravel and Liverpool were not aligned, says Millea. "I think probably that Mike would reflect on the comments he made and say well, there are times when it appears to be that way.
"I have a different opinion. I serve on Merseytravel and am one of the first to defend it when it comes to going out to consultation and to doing the things it does for Merseyside. There are so many things we work together on that outweigh the minor differences. Unfortunately it's those minor differences that perhaps get blown out of all proportion."
And he admits there is a need to improve the working relationship between the two authorities. "I think sometimes we need to understand each other a little bit better. Perhaps when we do make a comment about each other we need to count to ten first and say instead of reacting in this way, let's see what's meant by this."
Line one
From Liverpool's waterfront, line one will run out to Kirkby town centre, giving access to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, the new housing and retail development at Stonebridge Lane, Croxteth, the Approach 580 regeneration area on the East Lancs Road and Knowsley Industrial Park.
Also on the East Lancs Road will be the Merseytram depot, where 300 new jobs are likely to be created, and a park and ride facility that will cut down congestion in the city centre.
Under the proposals submitted by the MET consortium, part of the city centre loop will be postponed until after the Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008. Mike Flynn, MET director, says that with uncertainties over the demolition of the Churchill Way flyover, the viaduct under Dale Street, the Pier Head masterplan and the Fourth Grace site, "it made an awful lot of sense to wait until these questions are resolved".
Government and European Union Objective One funding have been agreed but the Government Office for the North West (GONW) has yet to give a formal go-ahead - expected in December at the earliest. A GONW spokesman said that while it was considering the public inquiry inspector's report, "it couldn't comment in order not to prejudice the secretary of state's decision".
Flynn insists that central government's attitude to funding tram systems is not a concern. "We know why systems elsewhere in the country were cancelled - because of cost overruns."
With Merseytram, by contrast, "we always knew what the costs and available finance were. We are confident we are within the affordability limit."
Line two
Reverting to the original proposals, Merseytram's second line will connect to trains and line one at Lime Street Station in the city centre, running on to Mount Pleasant, giving access to Liverpool John Moores University and the Metropolitan Cathedral.
After Abercromby Square, the stop for the University of Liverpool, the line will give access to existing and new residential developments at Chatham Place, to Wavertree Retail Park and then - depending on which options are taken - either to Liverpool Science Park or Wavertree Technology Park.
Line two's final leg will bring links to Alder Hey Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, the M57, where a park and ride facility will be built, Prescot town centre and finally Whiston Hospital.
But there is as yet no money on the table, and will be none until December at the earliest, when the government considers a new round of funding for local transport plans. A Government Office for the North West spokesman said it was awaiting more appraisal information before deciding on line two's value for money. Only then would a decision on finance and the routes be taken.
Line three
A route to the airport now seems a long way off. Peter Millea, Liverpool City Council's executive member for regeneration and a member of Merseytravel, says the council has always been concerned that central government enthusiasm for funding tram systems may be coming to an end.
"There is a degree of financial uncertainty about what money we might expect from central government in the future," says Millea. "Their ongoing war in Iraq has caused all sorts of public expenditure cuts to be made all over the place."
He adds: "I hope that, in the circumstances, once lines one and two are up and running that every effort will be made to bring forward line three as soon as possible. I am concerned that the projected time of 2010/2011 may mean we have missed the opportunity."
For the fuller picture,
subscribe to Insider
every month.
