Transport promises: How Mayors plan to spend YOUR money! | Ep 32

What the Metro Mayors want to spend YOUR money on – we delve into some of the transport promises in winning Mayoral manifestos and ask how realistic they are.

Richard has to eat a bit of humble pie over Yorkshire; and
The Channel Tunnel turns 30!

This time presented by Richard Bowker and Green Signals General Manager Stef Foster.

Note from Richard – apologies to the Metro Mayors of Liverpool City Region and West Yorkshire because contrary to what I said on the show, those regions did indeed go to the polls last week and the incumbent Mayors won their respective elections. Congratulations to them – and I’m heading off for new glasses since having read a particular source document multiple times, I still managed to put two Combined Authorities in the wrong column…….

In this episode:

00:00 Intro
01:39 Ffestiniog Railway Snowdonian steam train footplate ride video (https://youtu.be/eMlmbQ1Mv5s?si=t_5QurcCGLPRyUbl)
03:38 Feedback on Big Interview with Rail Minister Huw Merriman (https://youtu.be/dXunqWiA6bQ)
05:30 Mayoral Elections on May 2nd and what the outcomes might mean for the railway
08:29 South Yorkshire Combined Authority – Mayor Oliver Coppard (Reopening Doncaster Sheffield Airport, trial of free travel for young people on public transport, Sheffield Supertram and buses back into public ownership)
15:42 Tees Valley Combined Authority – Ben Houchen (Lord) (Network North and reallocation of HS2 funds, Teesside International Airport Station)
29:49 Greater Manchester Combined Authority – Andy Burnham (The Bee Network, Liverpool-Manchester Railway, HS2 alternative)
37:12 West Midlands Combined Authority (Nationalisation of buses and why it’s different to the railway)
51:03 Channel Tunnel 30th anniversary

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Credits:
Presenters – Nigel Harris (@railnigel on X) & Richard Bowker CBE (@SRichardBowker). General Manager: Stef Foster (@stefatrail)

coming up on today’s show what the Mayors want to spend your money on WE delve into some of the transport promises in winning maral manifestos and ask how realistic they are Richard has to eat a bit of Humble Pie over Yorkshire and the channel tunnel turns [Music] 30 hello and welcome to Green signals for the first time from me Steph Foster and and uh as per normal uh from me Richard balker now if you’re a regular listener you might have heard Nigel and Richard mention my name once or twice before because I’m normally in the background oiling the wheels as it were uh but we knew this day would come at making it all happen by the way making it all happen yeah well I’m I’m trying to be polite you know um but we knew this would happen at some point Didn’t we that uh you and Nigel wouldn’t be available at the same time to be able to record uh an episode so we didn’t want to miss one uh so you get to enjoy my sparkling company this time instead and all the better we are for it um good I hope so yeah no you’re absolutely right it it it we’ve done remarkably well actually managing to align uh Diaries um but on this occasion and we did try and we did try and Nigel tried his absolute best but we just couldn’t make it work and we’ve just decided as a as a team that we would not miss a show so hence the reason we’re doing this um uh one the things that Nigel and I have done uh this week by the way is we’ve um put together a video which is up on the site about the snowdonian um yes it’s a say so ourselves it’s a brilliant little video um we went on the snowdonian steam train um up on the fiso railway a couple of week uh couple of weekends ago um I was luy enough to get a foot plate ride with the driver and the fireman and I filmed it all um and then Nigel’s done some absolutely superb captions which we’ve added so you can actually work out what’s going on whole whole thing it’s only 30 minutes but the people who’ve watched it have all said it it’s the best they’ve seen so um there’s a link on it’s on our site we’ll put a link in the description um check it out yeah I mean I thought it was really fantastic because it’s so unusual I think somebody said on Twitter today didn’t they that it’s unusual to see that angle of of a steam train or or of the snow donian as well because there’s loads of um videos on YouTube of Drone footage and you know lots of people have taken some fantastic shots but nothing from the foot plate so this is it is unique it is unique and the other thing was the weather was extraordinary I mean it was beautiful glorious wasn’t it and had the sun behind us so filming it um you got the copper on the or is it copper or brass I’m right I’m now in trouble but anyway um are going to be in trouble for not shiny metal and it looks stunning so anyway it was shiny yeah so definitely worth a watch yes anyway we must take a few moments to thank not one not two but five Super thanks fans on YouTube this week we were really overwhelmed with the generosity we’ve had from so many of you so thank you to Blue Skies up north user ws5 bn1 r q2i I really hope I’ve said that right guyb 3785 Mr Dixie 951 and Alan AR Pollock 9683 we are enormously thank grateful and um we will always take the time to thank viewers who give us super thanks so thank you thank you now before we get stuck into the main topics this week we just want to comment on the huge amount of feedback we’ve had following the recent interview with ra Minister Hugh maramman which is linked in the description if you’re on YouTube unsurprisingly there was real polarization in the opinions from viewers and listeners but there were some fairly consistent views weren’t there Richard from uh train drivers there were um I they were quite quite strong an artic clearly articulated I believe is the phrase uh yeah there was um I basically I think most of the those who commented just really disagreed uh with what he’ said um some of them put it more direct ly um than that um but the sort the general theme was uh it’s sweeping generalizations right you’re making sweeping generalizations you’re taking spe very specific uh examples um some of which they didn’t even agree with those and applying it across the whole of the um whole of the sort of the landscape of of the Railway um now look I we we had Mick wheelen on the show um a couple of months ago now actually did and Mick you know made his case and uh we gave him a hopefully a fair hearing and uh exactly the same with the rail Minister but this issue of driver’s conditions and it was things like when they can uh ask ask for leave and the time they can do it the day before how long beforehand stuff like that um so we’re going to do a little bit of factchecking on that and um we’ve um we we we’ll dig into that and we’ll come back and let people know what we find yeah definitely right so we’ve decided to focus mainly on one big thing this time because the maral elections on May the 2 raised all sorts of questions and got us pondering what some of the outcomes of those elections might mean for the railway and transport in general so there are 12 Metro Mayors in the UK so it would be impossible for us to go through all of them so we’ve chosen four that we think deserve a bit more of a look at haven’t we we have indeed I suppose the first thing say what is a met R Ro mayor a relatively New Concept I think I mean we’ve had a London mayor for quite a number of years now um obviously starting with um Ken Livingston and and Boris Johnson who could who could forget either of them really um indeed but uh Metro mares in other devolved English regions this is very much an English region thing uh are relatively new so I think the big first tranch were were in 2017 when they were elected and basically they are um elected leaders of um combined authorities and when I mean combined Authority I mean take as an example greater Manchester so greater Manchester is a combined authority of I’ll miss a few out but um Stockport Rochdale Olden Wigan Bolton Trafford sford right so they’re they’re combined together and they have devolved powers from Westminster to spend oh some absolutely colossal amount of money something like 25 billion a year um and it does affect over 40% of the of the um English population so it’s it’s a big big it is very significant as you said Steph there’s 12 of them um the the elections this time were I think they were just for um 10 of them it’s a bit confusing because there was a new one um you could argue there was a 13th it wasn’t it was a combination of what something that was there before so there’s 12 of them and we we elected 10 of them this time some of them like Liverpool and West Yorkshire weren’t up for re-election so we’ve we’ve not done those on this show we might come back to those at some point and we haven’t done London either because London is it’s so big and it’s quite a mature meraly because of the fact it’s been around for so long now we will look at tfl at some point well I feel like that’ be a whole show really wouldn’t it so absolutely right um so what we’ve done is we’ve focused on South Yorkshire West Midland cuz that one’s interesting cuz that’s just flipped from Tory to to labor teas Valley cuz it’s just all a bit mad and uh greater Manchester obviously which is um quite a long way down the bringing stuff back into public control route and perhaps some of the others so that’s three labor um and one that kind of defied the national mood really so hopefully a good cross yes that is a good one yeah yeah okay should we start then let’s start so South Yorkshire combined Authority now this is labor mayor Oliver copard who was reelected with 51% of the vote and Conservative candidate Nick Allen trailed behind on just 16.5 so he won by quite some margin he was first elected in 2022 but the election there was brought forward because the police and crime commissioner role has been merged with the mayor as we’ve seen happen elsewhere now the first thing that caught our eye in this one and I have to say I sniggered a bit when I read this cuz I could just hear your voice in my head Richard going why why reopen Doncaster Sheffield airport creating a thriving Regional Airport at the heart of South Yorkshire airport city a world leading Center for sustainable Aviation Richard go there’s so much in that isn’t there I I mean look in Fair fairness to Oliver card he got 51% of the vote I always think if you win an absolute majority as opposed you’re just the biggest um yes vote then there’s a there’s a kind of the Mandate there is kind of you know everybody else combined didn’t get as many as you Bas indeed so that’s kind of a good thing why though and this is a kind of theme with a few of these isn’t it why do so many people think an airport is a symbol of regional Grandeur or status I mean stainable Aviation I’m not sure a world leading Center I mean I’m not we’re actually a relatively small island I do I do find this all a bit weird there’s actually four four other airports within an hour um and it wasn’t this one this particular one we’re talking about wasn’t profitable under the previous owners I think it was PE group wasn’t it um list trust vow to save it and didn’t mind you it’s quite a few things um that she didn’t do and maybe we shouldn’t say any more about that maybe we should just move on um it does have substandard transport links compared with its Rivals maybe that’s partly Oliver’s point I don’t know really uh and there was going to be a very expensive link something you know four or five million pound linking the East Coast main line that was rejected about four years ago so I I don’t really get this uh kind of uh we’re a region we’re a big region and to show just how important we are we’re going to have a big Regional Airport that’s going to have world class links I just not sure that’s really the right thing in 24 no I don’t really understand it either and it just feels like how are they going to make that something that works if for such a long time it didn’t you know what are they going to do differently to make it suddenly profitable and you know sustainable since that is the word of their uh Manifesto one of the other things was test and trialfree travel on public transport for young people in South Yorkshire how’s this one going to work Richard um well it probably work quite well I I I think there’s a kind of a general point which um I do think all these maral manifestos are a little bit um reticent to mention which is that none of this is free you know the NHS isn’t free education isn’t free and by the way before everybody’s run to the keyboards going is he is he trying to propose privatizing no I’m not right just pointing out that those all those things are paid for out of General taxation which means that um those of us you know everybody right has less money to decide what to go and spend on um make their own choices right because the tax Tak has been paid for those things um that might be a good thing right um but the point about this is you know that this um proposal will cost money so but I think the reason why this is probably justified in this case um is because people uh young people may um live in you know deprived areas they may not have access to easy access to education they may not have easy access to jobs um and the barrier is not necessarily physically where they are it’s the fact they can’t afford yeah the travel so I get it right and I I think that’s probably a good thing and you remember when Bill Reef was on the show we were talking about exactly this point with the Le mouth link when he said look uh it’s there’s all these kids in all these in this particular part of five that simply can’t access education because there isn’t um affordable public transport there so no I do I do get it and I suspect it will be um it’ll be quite um quite successful it’s just not free no and I think that’s it I I think it’s probably going to be quite a popular thing um but like you say we just need to remember that it might be free to the end user but it’s not free to everybody else is it that’s the phrase yeah and the next thing is they’ve brought the super tram back into public control and they are planning on doing the same with the buses yeah the super tram one’s interesting um because as you say that’s that’s only recently it’s only recently moved into public control I did see a great uh I think it was a tweet or something that the mayor put out saying and look in the first few weeks we’ve had it was some colossal increase in re you as percentage points thought right okay yeah I suspect I suspect there are other factors there and you know let’s let’s have a look at this as sustained period of time um but one thing about light rail it’s very expensive um and it’s complex you know utility movements and highways changes um it takes time no it can be really worth doing I mean look at the Manchester experience with metr link I mean metr link is brilliant I I love it yeah AB The Sheffield system South York has never quite done it for me in the same way CU there’s so much more Street running which is lovely for people of a certain age and sort of harking back to the days of old trams but it does mean it it um it’s not as perhaps as operationally flexible as it as it might be um but it will take time to do it but anyway look it’s back in public control and and they’re and no doubt they’ll they’ve got lots of plans for it on the buses you know there’s a bit of a I’ve got a bit of a concern that people think oh buses bringing back into public control that’s fixed everything now the reality is it’s it’s a lot more complex than that and I suspect um as the mayor of London has found and certainly as as Andy Burnham is finding you it’s that’s just making that decision is just one part of a journey yeah and I reckon I reckon we should cover that when we talk about uh West Midlands and uh greater Manchester because there’s some interesting lessons to learn from those okay we’ll come back to buses then oh what a good idea we should come back to buses I like buses okay moving on to teas Valley combined Authority Ben hin Lord as he is now has been reelected as the conservative mayor for a third term with 53% of the vote now this was the one that I thought was really interesting because of course there was quite a lot pressure on him considering how nervous the conservatives were about these elections and it would have been a real blow to sunak if howchin had lost this one so I think it’s it’s a bit interesting really to look at how he’s done this because his campaign if you look at it was really on his own achievements it wasn’t a conservative campaign it was him and he was running it more like an independent candidate so perhaps distancing himself from his party was was part of his uh his trick here um and we couldn’t find a formal manif Manifesto for him could we so what we found instead was a transport plan which was launched in January 2024 that supposedly benefited from1 billion pounds released from hs2 promises but we’re really confused by this aren’t we uh yeah I mean it doesn’t even begin to describe it does it um and this is uh you’re absolutely right this this is a guy that doesn’t suffer from any issues of self-doubt I think it’s fair to say um and that and if there is a teas Valley maril Manifesto for the conservative party and we’ve just not found it but you you listening know where it is could you let us know because we genuinely we wouldn’t want to say there wasn’t one when in fact there is one we just couldn’t find it but we’d like to see it we’d like to see it um so why is this confus using well it is confusing and first we have to talk about thing that I’m afraid I can’t stop calling crusts but it’s not crusts it’s actually I like that as an acronym though it’s so great crusts yeah crsts which of course as you know stands for City Regional sustainable transport settlement there you go um now uh c r sts1 was launched in I think signed off by Grant chaps a couple of years ago in when he was transport secretary in 2022 okay and for teas Valley that was £310 Million when you look at uh what happened when hs2 was cancelled um they got crsts 2 and there was an uplift um which was apparently a a windfall that came as a result of canceling hs2 and that those two things together added up to about a billion pound or they’re about just under a billion pound yeah so I think am I right about is it about 600 400 or 700 300 I can’t I can’t remember what yes yeah right so um that’s csrs crsts 2 with the up just call it crust it’s easier just call it crusts right so that’s what te’s valley have got so the only thing we found was uh in January of 2024 um Ben hin announced his a billion pound transport plan you think ah right so that’s the billion pounds that matches crust 2 uh well no because in his list of things in his billion pounds are some things from crust one right so that’s why we’re a bit confused and we’re actually because we’re a bit sad like this we are going to do quite a deep dive on this and try and work out exactly what’s in what part and what is being claimed because it is it is confusing let’s just put it that way however there are some interesting things that come out of this Steph um one the letter from Grant chaps for crust one back in 2022 does not read like okay there’s your cash off you go spend it as you want actually there’s a lot of control number one number two there are some significant projects which the letter says oh by the way this is in Your settlement but we are we the DFT will be retaining the control of these and we will be responsible for the business case and in all three cases ah and there’s a sting in the tail in all three cases Darlington station uh North alleron to Eagles Cliff gauge clearance and for anybody who thinks what on Earth is that well that’ll be me that’ll be you okay well Gage clearance um is is basically the the size of the infrastructure how big it is the capacity how big a train it can can pass through it and if you want to run more freight trains bigger freight trains that you might need to improve the gauge clearance so that’s what that is and then there’s another one called te’s Works stations there’s some stations in what was the old British steel works all of those the Department’s letter back in July 22 says uh we need to retain control of these because they have uh implications for we have to ensure integration with the national network and that’s a really key point right so it isn’t just there’s your money off you go yeah you know there’s quite a lot of residual control and those three um sort of retained and that I think is a really big point when we come back and talk about greater Manchester and um and the West Midlands but that’s we still not quite got to the bottom of what’s in his list and who’s P for it and what pot it’s coming out of but we’ll we’ll get to that at some point we hope oh no no we will we will you’re determined you’re absolutely determined oh yes I mean I have to say I just I wouldn’t trust this man to budget my shopping for a week he seems to think that everything costs 40 million pounds I mean if you look at the list so here’s here’s an example deliver infrastructure to allow direct rail Services between Darlington and harleypool 40 million deliver a package of interventions to sort a66 capacity constraints 40 million South Bank railway station improvements and transport Hub and hub Park and Ride facility £40 million and my favorite deliver a new platform three for middlesbor station at a faster pace4 million that’s a platform yeah and I wasn’t sure whether it was the 40 the 40 million was doing it faster as as a result of doing it faster or or whether it was actually 40 million no it is quite bizarre isn’t it um and we’re kind of back to our recurring friend of haxby station and why does it cost 224 million pounds for a two platform station which we um we are determined to get to the bottom of and we we haven’t done yet but we will do um it’s just like you’re you’re absolutely right and not only that there’s some things on that that list the billion pound list is full of Road schemes I mean it’s absolutely chalk full of Road schemes um now you could argue because I’m sure the the mayor would yeah but that’s what we think the transport priorities are for the region and it’s not just about putting it all in one pot right can’t really argue with that that’s that’s not yeah that’s fair enough it’s a fair enough position to adopt and it was in his plan and he’s being reelected so he kind of go and he got 53% of the vote so it’s not like he hasn’t got a mandate right but there’s nobody should be under any out there’s loads of Road schemes um in there but you’re dead right Steph I mean yeah 40 million 40 million 40 million 4 it’s and I just you look at those and you go yeah but should they should they all cost that amount of money yes exactly is is a is still a kind of the unit cost question um looms large with this list it does I mean we’ll um we’ll put a link to all of these on our um yeah uh on our website so that anybody wants to have a look at this whole list can can can do so and can laugh as uh as we have um but one of the things that I just thought was a bit barmy really was create a landscape for autonomous vehicles and that’s along with some traffic management investment as well but 60 million pound I mean for a start what does that even mean create a landscape for autonomous vehicles I don’t know I I genuinely don’t know I mean one of my one of my um favorites in here delivery of 15 trackless autonomous electric trams but that’s what the rest of us called bus right uh in teas Valley Town Cent 20 million pound you know there’s some some slightly mad stuff here um tside International Airport hey we’re back to um airports again uh tside International Airport railway station 20 million quid now uh interesting facts about this the station was closed in May 2022 because it had fallen into a of real um disrepair um according to the office of rhod and uh rails usage station usage statistics that are such things um that in 2122 it was the it was the third least used station in the country with just 42 passengers in a year partly probably because it was served by one train a week in One Direction only uh and um it was a parliamentary train on a Sunday which is it ran just to sort of keep it keep it open so it wasn’t exactly um a money spinner so but we’re going to spend 20 million pounds on it apparently I know and I mean 20 million for that is just it’s a ludicrous amount of money isn’t it because for a start wasn’t that station nowhere near the airport so it was a really long walk anyway I mean I don’t know whether they’re proposing to move it to somewhere more sensible um one would hope so for 20 you would hope so right um but the airport wasn’t doing well for a number of years was it and um I mean the only thing is with building a station there it does seem to be that the airport itself has had a bit of a turnaround since it was taken into public ownership which was in 2019 and since then passenger numbers have soared 96% which is the biggest increase by a UK airport and that was during the period that covid obviously hit and everybody was really struggling um it’s one of just six airports to exceed prepandemic numbers it’s won two Awards since then um and there’s a 200 million pound business park being developed south of the airport so are you making are you making a case for te’s International Airport railway station then it does sound a bit like that doesn’t it but I suppose it was that I was looking at it thinking well okay 20 million P for a station is crazy anyway because we are probably talking about something small because let’s be honest this isn’t Heath row this is tside um but I can see that there might be an argument for if you’re trying to regenerate the airport it’s doing pretty well it’s kind of working then maybe giving it better transport links would be sensible but I don’t think you should spend 20 million pounds on it no and just to be clear when we say that we don’t like 20 million pounds in a railway station we’re talking about two platforms plain line yeah exact uh bus shelters on the platform really nice bus shelters but bus shelters on the nth less uh and a small car park on one side and no real station buildings right I mean that’s that’s when it’s 2024 million pound we go no exactly um there are some other absolute crackers by the way um there’s an awful lot in the te’s valley list which is feasibility study right one of my favorites is the um is a million pounds for the East Cleveland rail feasibility study for the saltburn to buby line to be reopened to passengers right so this isn’t to reopen it this is a million pounds to do a feasibility study um yeah if you if you’ve got an idle moment just go and have a look on a rail Atlas or even Google Earth because you can see you can see the railway line on Google Earth when you do the satellite image I mean there there can’t be many examples of a railway that takes a a less direct route between two points than the line between saltburn and Bulby where there is a potach mine I believe at one end of it there are a couple of settlements along the way is I think one of the places called Loftus and it’s not it’s not small you know it’s reasonable okay um but the line doesn’t even go into saltburn actually The Junction’s actually before saltburn station so you you kind of go that does not feel like a worthwhile use of a million pounds I mean that’s the problem with all of this stuff it’s almost now the unit of currency in all of these rail projects is a million or multiple Millions yes and there’s loads of feasibility studies in here how how you you worked it out how much do all the feasibility studies add up to 12 million 12 million pound 12 million P to not deliver anything I know you’ve got to do proper planning I know that you know if you don’t look at stuff carefully you pay for it later on in terms of uh lack of understanding and study I get all that but a million quid for a Railway line that that will never be reopened to passenger Services just seems a bit bit of a waste I think that’s it I mean I don’t think either of us would have any issue with a feasibility study it’s why does it have to cost a million because it seems that there’s nothing on his list that costs less than that that is true but anyway moving on greater Manchester so Andy Burnham was reelected for the third time with 63.4% of the vot and this was a really quite stunning win wasn’t it 420,000 votes compared with a Conservative candidate who got just 69k I mean incredible really so the manifesto promises that caught our eye with this one was uh Burnham’s completing the B Network Vision so this is Manchester’s plan to create an integrated tap in tap out system like London has and I think I’m right Richard it was be the first outside London wouldn’t it that’s like that like that I think so yeah yeah so it unites bike bus tram and train and it has a daily Fair cap like you see in London now the new bit is that he’s saying he will bring forward the completion of that scheme by integrating eight commuter rail Lines within the next mayal term so that’s by 2028 and what struck me here is that he’s talking about public ownership of those commuter Lines by trans sport for greater Manchester now if labor wins the general election what does that mean for Louise hag’s public ownership plans I mean how would that work or or don’t we know yet well I think probably um don’t we know we don’t know is is probably the order of the day because I suspect the devil will be in the detail and explain why I’ve got to I’ve got to be honest I’m biased right when it comes to Great to Manchester for two reasons one is um because I was born in oldum right so this is kind kind of um you know sort of my part the world yeah and also I like Andy Burnham I think he’s uh you know he’s a charismatic guy he’s a great communicator he’s got that ability to be you know appear to be he’s kind of a a man of the people really he’s he’s he’s he’s he’s good and he and I think you know look at look at the voting numbers and you know people have bought into what what he’s what he’s saying and what he’s trying to do however you know there are some real challenges with what is being suggested um I mean you talked about those rail commuter lines so what are we talking about we’re probably talking about things like um I think on his list he had Wigan to Manchester Victoria didn’t he that’s okay because that’s entirely within the combined area um uh olderly Edge to Picadilly I suspect that goes into chesher buckton to Picadilly that definitely goes into darbishire um Rockdale stopping Services that’s almost entirely with that’ll be within the combat Authority point being that uh not all of those lines are entirely within the combined Authority area so you know a bit like in London really when uh people did say when I was at the Strategic rail Authority say well why is the mayor sort of being allowed to run services that actually run into places where he has no electoral mandate right so that is a bit of a challenge um but the other probably bigger challenge because there’s ways around that right the the biggest challenge of all is capacity and network constraints so you know the the line if you take for example you know the line from I don’t know uh let’s take the bookon one as an example so those trains run from Manchester padil to Stockport and then they Branch off and go down to bookon that Manchester to Stockport Corridor is the West Coast main line right and it’s stacked full of of of anti-west coast trains and cross country trains and freight trains and Northern trains and all the rest of it so there is a question about shared use and how you divy that up I don’t think anybody’s got an issue with transport for GR to Manchester running devolve Services you know Mery rail is doing pretty well in in in Liverpool In fairness yeah absolutely but it’s how do you manage that capacity because EV you can guarantee one thing Steph every when you add up everybody’s wishes it will be greater than the capacity of the network to delivery so yeah for sure I don’t think will be an issue in I think politically it’s fine it’ll be how you do it in in practice that will be the real the real issue for uh greater Manchester yeah I think you’re right there um so the other big one in Burnham’s document is we will establish a Liverpool to Manchester Railway board to oversee the creation of a publicly op operated Railway the Liverpool and Manchester Railway serving the northwest of England now this is one that he’s come up with in conjunction with Steve rotheram who was reelected to Liverpool last week the idea is to improve links between the two cities after the scrapping of hs2 now I quite like what’s that it’s been suggested that the creation of this board could coincide with the 200th anniversary of the original Liverpool and Manchester rway in 2029 which I thought was quite nice idea but what is all this about Richard because it it surely wouldn’t deliver an equivalent solution to the one hs2 would have created well it is rather it’s rather Whimsical in a way isn’t it that that whole and the timing is nice you know the 200 and all the rest of it I agree with you but there are there are Railways today between Liverpool and Manchester there’s multiple routs between Liverpool and Manchester so is this is this a new one as was perhaps envisaged under uh as nor Paris rail or is this what are we going to do with the existing ones you know I think we’re we’re back to this whole kind of you know as as important as these Regional authorities these combined authorities are um there are huge implications for the rest of the national network and the and the Liverpool Manchester Railway cannot be you can’t develop that in isolation of the national network it’s just it’s not possible right so maybe the answer it’s just going to be a big stakeholder group that’s got to do this and maybe that’s maybe that is the answer and that’s what what um that is the way forward but I don’t think this is going to be um a five minute job um will it will it do what um well I mean I’m not even I mean northern Powerhouse rail um you know hen I know Henry murison um is chief executive of the PowerHouse Northern Powerhouse partnership he very sort of strong on this in terms of Regional connectivity and this and the East West links uh and maybe we should um be good at some point to get Henry on and just chat about the generality of this I mean might not to talk about specific um projects but talk about generality of it because it can’t happen in isolation these these authorities can’t do these things on their own no um and I think it’s going to be quite complicated but great idea but I think the detail is going to be quite well quite tricky yeah I mean the other thing that struck me is what does this mean for Andy Burnham and Andy streets plan that they had because obviously they were working closely on this hs2 alternative and uh Andy street is is no longer the mayor of the West Midlands so that rather neatly brings us on to uh West Midlands doesn’t it it does so rich Richard Parker has been elected after Andy Street served for seven years as mayor and there were just 1,500 votes between them so this really was quite tight and and um I’ve got to be really brutally honest here this is the manifesto that I found the least convincing um there’s just absolutely no substance in it it’s full of puff and stock phrases like we need to improve Regional capacity and connections to achieve our economic potential and to connect people to jobs education and Leisure I mean isn’t that just the job of Transport hasn’t he just described what transport does I’m just not sure what he’s going to do to improve capacity and connections it’s just really lots of wishy-washy Words which I found really different to what we see from Andy Burnham which is much more you know he’s made commitments he’s got plans very very different I mean do you do you agree well I’m I’m sensing you weren’t very impressed with this one I wasn’t I wasn’t no I wasn’t either um it it it sort of smacked a bit of um somebody new to the job was a bit inexperienced and wasn’t quite sure what they were going to do didn’t it he wasn’t he’s not a politician is he no but that’s not that’s not a bad thing of itself but not at all but but you know with Andy Street um you had a very clear vision of what he was going to try to do and and how he thought he was going to do it right um interestingly um the labor candidate who won I think the labor vote in reality was a bit was a bit bigger it it wouldn’t it wasn’t quite as tight as that because I think there’s a there was another candidate wasn’t there who all who split the labor vote in reality by um by standing as an independent um so in re in truth it was it was probably bigger than that point um but you know Andy Burnham’s got a plan Oliver cod’s got a plan you know bless it Ben Hon’s got a plan right does um this one doesn’t feel like there’s uh much of a plan the one thing that is there is obviously taking back control of of the buses right um which is a theme that we’re seeing across a lot of these Labor uh lead manifestor so let’s let’s just talk about this because it might give us an insight into the challenges when it comes to rail let’s just assume for a minute that and this is economic theory that a private company acting rationally will be a profit maximizer okay so if that’s the casee that rather suggests that if private bus companies have been running bus services it’s because they thought they would make money and if they haven’t run them it’s because they were fairly convinced they wouldn’t make money right if they wouldn’t make money that means that they need subsidy or public support um local authorities ever since deregulation came in have been able to say to the private operators look we would like to we would like you to Tender for a service that we would like to pay for often called socially necessary services today stacks of um bus school bus services are exactly that so local private operators run these under tender for the local Authority they wouldn’t make any money on their own but we need bus services for schools so that’s a good example right and lots of rural bus um services are the same what they’ve decided to do in Manchester and what others are going to follow say no we don’t want to follow that anymore we want to control it we want to be responsible um for it more now they’re not running their own buses right they’re still contracted like they are in London so these are still private companies that are winning contract but instead of instead of the private company having an basically be able to set fairs and do everything now the local Authority or transport for greater manager says you will run these buses from this garage and this and we are setting fairs and we’re setting the timetable you you just run the buses to our very tight specification and it’s cost a lot of money you know to buy new buses and put them all in a in a common Livery so what is the benefit of what’s happened in Manchester well Andy will say uh integration Clarity over service planning uh ticketing and being able to have crossb and actually I agree with all of that that that I think has got real potential but there is an elephant in the room and the elephant in the room is congestion right so in these Urban environments um all of what’s happening in Manchester is great but unless we improve bus corridors bus lanes bus uh prior traffic priority management schemes to allow the buses to uh be more reliable there’s a serious possibilities they’ll look great and be stuck in the same jams and that’s was always the issue in the West Midlands when I was at National Express they would always say to us at um West Midland’s passenger transport executive we want you to make the buses run better okay we will invest but could you please give us some bus lanes and some traffic light priority schemes very very soft stuff like when a bus approaches a set traffic lights there’s a beacon in the traffic light knows to to change clever stuff that’s not obvious to um mot necessarily can we have all of that please oh no that’ be very difficult because because motorists wouldn’t like that I know right so I just say to um the leader of the West Midlands uh it’s one thing to say you’re going to take back control but it’s not just about saying I am now specifying the service you’ve got to do the whole thing and I think congestion in urban areas big big big issue for Richard Parker in in in the West Midlands okay so why do you think then that it’s important to have public ownership of the railways ah that is indeed a very good question I think there’s differences right and the differen is on the railway Network it’s back to the point about Manchester and or anywhere actually it’s a shared infrastructure and it’s highly capacity constrained and at the moment on the railways I think performance reliability complexity is actually causing a real problem and that’s why I think that more directing mind stuff we’ve talked about makes sense because of the system we’ve got not quite the same on buses um because the the highways Authority or the local Authority actually probably the is you know is the road infrastructure manager it’s not I don’t think it’s the same level of complexity that’s not to say congestion isn’t an issue right um like that’s I think one of the biggest problems is look I’m not making a political point on on either buses or uh Railways I think actually private sector on the buses get a bit of a bad wrap really because where they’ve been good they are excellent in terms of investment staff training you know efficiency they’ve been really very good and the public sectors had the ability to run pay for additional services for a long long time but there have been some bad examples as well so you know I I don’t have a problem with that it’s just congestion is a serious issue and it is different to the railways because the railways the the net the network infrastructure is so much more complex and at the moment we’re just not doing the basics right hence why I think we need a direct in mind yeah no that makes a lot of sense I can I can see that should we move on to the quiz I think we should move on to the quiz cuz I’ve been really looking forward to this because I know can I just say I am so pleased actually despite what you’re about to say that that it’s you and not Nigel for reasons which will become but Nigel’s going to wish that he could have this moment because you need to eat a rather large slice of Humble Pie don’t you Richard yeah and you know what I think that I threatened some time ago that I would take your quiz Master privileges away the last time you made a mistake on the quiz and you wriggled out of it so I’m not sure whether perhaps this week I should be doing that well wouldn’t be holy unfair I have to say on this occasion should I explain why I’ve got to apologize so I’ve got to apologize because I said the question last week was I gave five places crew York Darby swinden uh and Brighton and said the question was which is the which is the odd one out and why and lots and lots of different answers um and I said that the reason is is because it’s York because it’s the only one that’s in the county town uh of the county that it’s in you know and try to be very clever and say you know Darby’s not in Dar Darby’s in darish but the count sounds Matlock and all that kind of stuff um nobody got it so I said okay well look because we’re not mean uh since so many people had said it’s York because that was only a carriage works we’ll we’ll let that be the winner two problems number one York is not the county town of North Yorkshire as about half a dozen people pointed out um including the person um Karen I believe is her name who pointed out that I’d got it wrong with richmondshire a couple of or Richmond a couple of weeks previously now uh the county town of North Yorkshire is of course North alleron um so it’s just as well nobody um well nobody was ever going to get it right because it was an un possible because you were it was possible do you know what was an even bigger problem somebody then came up and said ah York Wasa was originally um they used to build the northeastern Railway built locomotives in York like a hundred years ago and oh flipping neck right so we’re gonna stand on the second one you did I was there was basically nothing on which I was right um so I’m recording there was nothing on which I was right brilant in specifically about this question of course yes but I was wrong and I apologize so there you go um however last week’s question fortunately was a lot more straightforward and quite a few people got it so the question was my local constituency in the next general election will be uh Mel shman devises it’s a new seat the current MP for devises is Danny Krueger who has the most curious connection to the railways what is it well the winner who actually has now won twice um and as a result we’re we’re going to um change the rules of the competition actually which I’ll come on to in a minute was Mr Cogan’s garage um who said uh Dan Krueger’s mother is PR Leaf the cooking Legend bof and was on the British Rail board with the responsibility for catering some say she saved us from the British Rail sandwich for which many thanks Pro so that’s his connection to the railways and of course that was the absolute correct answer Danny Kruger’s m is PR Le who was on the British Railways board um so you don’t need to send me your email Mr cogins because I’ve already got it so so you will become um the first person and uh to to own two mugs but what we’re going to do going forward is we’re going to change things a bit because what we’ve realized is quite a lot of people um when we publish at 12:00 they’re either at work or they’re just doing stuff and they can’t get to the answer as quick as others so we’ve decided that what we’re going to do is from now on when we publish the show at 12:00 you’ll have 48 hours which gives you to basically to sort of Saturday Saturday lunchtime to tell us what the answer is and you have to tell us either on YouTube or by email I’m afraid if you do it by Twitter it’s really hard to timestamp it actually but if you do it on YouTube and you do it on email we know exactly when so please do it on those two things and then after 48 hours we’ll put all the correct answers into a hat and then we’ll draw one out at random so that’s how we’re going to do it going forward that makes sense sounds much fairer it does doesn’t it yeah yeah um so here’s this week’s question so we are recording this show uh on the 8th of May Steph and me and it’ll go out on the 9th what important event in the railways history celebrated its 50th Anniversary uh during the last week so think about 9th of May when this goes out in the last week what important event celebrated its 50th Anniversary literally have no idea you literally have no idea there you go um uh so let us know via YouTube or email info@ greens signal.org and then um at midday on Saturday we’ll close the competition and we’ll put all the correct answers into a pot and we’ll draw brought out one at random sounds good it does and now we can move on to another anniversary as our good news for today it was uh the channel tunnel’s 30th anniversary on Monday the 6th and it was opened in 1994 by the queen on average 10 million passengers a year use the L shuttle service through the tunnel and a further 11 million on EUR star and I found this a little bit bizarre that the stats that were released by getlink which runs the EUR tunnel shuttles said that they also carry around 4 million dogs a year is that right for a year yeah I thought it was a bit an odd odd thing to uh to do but um but then there was a woman interviewed on BBC Radio who um has worked for EUR tunnel for 28 years and she said that she seen gorillas Tigers a bear and a raccoon travel through the tunnel presumably not unaccompanied well one would hope not I mean I’m presuming that this was you know Zoo tooo transport or something but very bizarre thing to um to comment on but anyway um it cost 4.65 billion to build the channel tunnel in the end um when the estimate was just 2.6 billion that’s in 1985 prices so an 80% overrun but I should imagine there are very few people today who would say oh you shouldn’t have built that it was too expensive I mean people just wouldn’t want to go back in time and change it now would they yeah but nobody nobody would take a national piece of infrastructure of crucial National importance and go oh do you know what um it it’s it’s looking a bit more expensive than it should have been so we we’ll we’ll can it I mean that just wouldn’t happen would it no it wouldn’t I can’t imagine anybody would do that no can you imagine a world without tinel I me I I used to because I’m a little bit older I used to uh we used to go to the continent um a lot as kids um my parents loved European camping holidays um nice I know how we lived well it was in the day we didn’t it was in the days before you kind of did you know jetted off to somewhere hot so we went camping in Belgium right so it we used to get the sea link Ferry you know and all that kind of stuff um and you know the 90-minute Crossing from DOA to Cal or if you know if we were being very uh you know very sort of exciting we would be to Dunkirk or somewhere like that nice and yeah quite and the whole process was a bit of a a bit of a nightmare really and I just I just I love the iral and that it’s fantastic 30 years it’s extraordinary yeah but it just shows doesn’t it that that when you build it after a while it’s like cross rails exactly the same mean who sits there and goes hm I think it probably did cost a bit more than it should have done yeah said nobody ever now yeah exactly just doesn’t happen does it no and that’s sadly all we’ve got time for this week I hope you didn’t miss Nigel too much but don’t worry he’ll be joining Richard again next week and we’ve rather missed him haven’t we Richard I’ve missed him a lot um you know um and uh uh you know as you say he’ll be back next week mind you have to say have to say two reasons that I was quite pleased he wasn’t on the show this particular week go on number one because he would have given me such a hard time about um getting the quiz wrong you would have done and I suspect still will you will next week well quiet and number two because um I’ve got an opportunity without him here just to say how much I’m looking forward to Eurovision this weekend what uh honestly it’s my is my guilty pleasure um and I watched my first Eurovision in 1974 when AB won with watero of course I’ve missed very few s i and I knowable back then well possibly I know the music’s variable um and some of it’s absolutely appalling I know it’s absolute Madness and chaos and occasionally a bit of a political thing rather but I just think the whole Madness of it is is brilliant and occasionally a country comes up with a song you just go what I mean it’s just quite extraordinary so and and I could listen to Graham Norton doing his um commentary all night so no it’s uh we’ll be there um in front of the tally Saturday night with our little notepads to do our own scoring and oh you don’t do that do you well I couldn’t possibly comment now you said that but anyway Eurovision night on Saturday um don’t think Nigel will be watching it judging by his comments on Twitter but I certainly will so there you go I’m not sure I could look at you the same after you’ve just admitted that to be honest but anyway moving on uh thank you so much for listening or watching this week don’t forget to give us a thumbs up if you’re on YouTube and please subscribe if you haven’t already it really does help and most importantly join us again next week it’s goodbye from me and it’s goodbye from me [Music] n [Music]