I first came to work in Manchester in 1992, and since that time I’ve
watched the city and the wider region enjoy an outstanding economic
renaissance. Manchester over the past decade has been one of Britain’s
leading urban regeneration success stories.
We’ve got most
of the key ingredients here in Manchester for even greater economic
success. Crucially we’ve got human capital – education levels are one
of the strongest predictors of urban regeneration, and we’ve got
world-class universities. In fact we’ve got all the ingredients for
continued economic success except one – a modern integrated public
transport system. Traffic congestion is a huge problem here and it
imposes massive financial and social costs on the Greater Manchester
connurbation. We can’t carry on living with it.
The answer to
this problem, as previous pieces on this site by Rupa Huq and Sir
Richard Leese have argued, is the Transport Innovation Fund (TIF)
package. £3 billion of public transport improvements: an expanded
Metrolink, more and better trains and buses, completion of the cycle
network and less congested roads, which move much faster. We can do
this for a peak-time only congestion charge of £3 per day inside the
M60 corridor, with the improvements guaranteed before the charging
kicks in.
Achieving all this, however, will depend on the result
of December’s referendum. Right now, the outcome of that vote is too
close to call, although a recent poll suggests the ‘Yes’ campaign has
the edge. Our local party leadership and campaign groups like United
City are making a powerful case. Unfortunately, there’s also plenty of
misinformation coming from the opposition – including some shameful
scaremongering by a small minority of Labour’s own councillors and MPs.
“There’s nothing in it for my patch.” “Government should invest
more in public transport but not make us pay for it.” “The figures
don’t stack up.” These arguments are wrong: experience from around the
world shows that congestion charging works, but improvements in public
transport don’t and can’t happen without it.
To win this
referendum, a broader case has to be made. Quite simply, our future
economic prosperity as a city and as a region depends on having a
world-class transport infrastructure. The TIF bid isn’t simply about
better trams and buses, important though these are; it’s the key to the
future economic growth of Greater Manchester. The stark reality is that
if we don’t get better public transport, the region’s capacity for
economic growth will simply hit a ceiling of inadequate and outdated
infrastructure. Transport costs will put an insurmountable constraint
on growth, forcing us back to the growth levels last seen in the early
1990s.
Businesses understand this, which is why so many of
our leading companies have joined United City. But I’m not sure the
public yet understand how much is at stake. That’s why the publication
last week of KPMG’s Economic Impacts report is so welcome. As the
report explains, the combined benefits of all the elements of the TIF
package “substantially outweigh the costs imposed through the proposed
charge”. More than that, the package will have a massive positive
impact on labour markets and economic growth, with “all districts of
the City Region benefiting from a substantial increase in employment
opportunities”. But as the report sets out, “In the absence of the TIF
package the labour markets the City Region can offer will decline
substantially”.
As we approach the referendum, it’s time to
highlight just what’s at stake here. A greener, less congested
transport system is worth having in its own right. But it’s also
critical to our future economic prosperity. Without the TIF package,
we’ll stall. Win the referendum, and there are no limits to what
Manchester can achieve.
What a biased and unfair comment full of misinformation.
For a start the value of the TIF bid is about £2.7billion and not the £3billion as stated above. £300million is a lot of money to get wrong.
Richard Scorer goes on to say:
“Experience from around the world shows that congestion charging works, but improvements in public transport don’t and can’t happen without it.”
Err, let me get this right then. You can improve public transport as much as you like and it will have no effect on the local economy. But, a congestion charge will make a big improvement?
Not the experience in London. Many small businesses have gone to the wall since the charge was introduced and many large businesses have seen a fall in turnover with many now moving their operations away from the capital.
London has the world’s largest and most comprehensive tube system, Manchester does not. London’s charge covers a small area in the central zone, Manchester’s will be 12 times bigger and the largest congestion charge area on the planet. Nowhere on earth has a charge this big been introduced where the alternative transport systems are so limited.
There will not be any new busses from the TIF money, only a few miles of new tram and bus priorities.
There will be a significant reduction in road space for private vehicles to make way for the:
“bus priority corridors where new high quality buses are given more dedicated road space”.
So even if congestion was not too bad today, it will get far worse with the reduction in space for most vehicles.
The claims of ever worsening congestion is misinformation from the pro-tolls groups. When traffic inside the charging area has fallen by 12% at peak times, the only increased traffic numbers are on the motorways which are outside the zone.
Traffic speeds have fallen, but as every driver will know, this is because of the congestion causing schemes introduced by Manchester’s authorities to create the congestion needed to justify the charge.
Another piece of misinformation?
The vehicles entering the zone at today’s numbers will not pay the loan interest at the prices shown in the pro-toll information campaign. They rely on an increase in traffic numbers of 14% to cover the costs.
The KPMG report mentioned above comes from a company whose Director of Corporate Finance is widely quoted as the “Architect of the Manchester congestion charging plan”. KPMG are also a client of the GMPTE who released this in a press release
“At the heart of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive’s (GMPTE) strategy — on which KPMG in the U.K. was the lead advisor — was a bid for funding from the U.K. government’s Transport Innovation Fund (TIF).”
With such close ties to the success of the scheme, and such a financial benefit if it succeeds, can this report really be taken seriously?