Tuesday 4 September 2007

Transport chiefs seek Metrolink expansion team

The hunt is on for a team of 20 people to oversee the £600 million expansion of Greater Manchester's Metrolink light rail system.City transport chiefs are conducting nationwide search for individuals who have experience in project management, engineering and finance.The city-region's passenger transport body said that it is a "fantastic opportunity" for those who are keen to take a on a new challenge and be involved in one of the north-west's most important projects.As well as extra trams, work will soon begin on new Metrolink lines to Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside and Chorlton.A notice has already been placed in the Official Journal of the European Union as part of the process of selecting a major construction company to build the new lines.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

its about time we had the metrolink coming to tameside. lets hope it one day reaches duki

Anonymous said...

This is great news for Tameside and hopefully it will ease congestion but local residents must be consulted before it's decided where the tracks should be built.

Tom Hagen said...

200 people on project managers and beaurocrats?

You will soon see your "£3bn" soon turn to piss.

Anonymous said...

Ex Para

I agree with Liam. Lots of people will be travelling on the £3bn gravy train.

Tom Hagen said...

Dorris, whilst I am for a much needed investment in Transport. I do not want a Congestion Charge.

Ashton residents are amongst the lowest paid in Greater Manchester and according to a survey done by the Greater Manchester Low Pay Unit, the average weekly wage in Ashton was just under £115. With the rising cost of council tax and inflation, a Congestion Charge would be bad for the local economy of residents. The C Charge will cost peak travelers £25 a week. Which is nearly 25% of someones wage in Ashton. The average Manchester resident will lose around 9% of their wage according to Peel Holdings.

Why the C Charge will not work.

* Loan has to be paid back in 10 years. = £300m a year.
* Yearly interest from loan is £150m according to interest rates as quoted from Sir Dick Leese.

So we would need £450m a year to cover the cost of the loan.

Then you have the set up of the C Charge which is £500m and the yearly maintainence cost of £150m as estimated by the Labour party leaflet that is the M.E.N.

So we actually have "£2.5bn" to spend on public transport. Kiss goodbye to that as inefficient project managers take over.

Sir Dick has also said that the C Charge is to bring in £50m a year for Manchester.

So £450m of the loan + a maintaining the C Charge is £150m so thats £600m, then take away £50m actually raised from the C Charge and you will get £550m.

So where is Labour going to cover the cost of £550m a year? Raising council tax? Raising the cost of using public transport like we have seen year after year with above inflation price increases? The public want answers, but Manchester City Council are to frightened to give them because they know that the plan wont work.

Don't believe the Labour party spin which Labour dish out in the GMG newspapers distributed to everyone every week in Greater Manchester.

Sell the airport off, it will raise £4bn and with the £1bn left over it will pay out an interest of £150m a year. There will be no public debt at all, the only question is, can we trust the champagne socialists with so much money?

GMPTE say that trains are running on average at 270% capacity, so why has this been left to go unnoticed for the last 10 years? If money from council tax was drip fed over the last 10 years, we wouldn't need this congestion charge debate.

Oh and another thing from, Labour councillors in Tameside are contempt with the fact that over the last 3 years we have 181 less police officers on our street in Greater Manchester. However they hope to compensate this by putting more ineffective traffic wardens (patrollers) on our streets.

Anonymous said...

Sell off the airport??? is Mr Billington M.A.D? or is this the same great Tory policy of selling off the buses... Hmmm.

It is also heart warming to know that HADFIELD residents such as Mr Billington have such an interest in Tameside.

Tom Hagen said...

Mr. Perry aka anonymous, the airport pays out a dividend of £30m a year which is split between AGMA authorities. Tameside probably only gets a few hundred grand from the airport.

Selling off the airport would give Greater Manchester £150m in interest from the £1bn in cash.

The real reason Labour don't want to see the airport go is because they pocket a fair bit from being a panel member.

With Labour, you pay more but get less. This is another pet project for them which will allow them to spin money around in their little Quangos.

Anonymous said...

Ex Para

I think Liam will one day be an MP or a cabinet minister if not the PM himself. For a young lad he has great knowledge.

Anonymous said...

Great knowledge, bul**hit.

Read his comments on TMBC.

Anonymous said...

Great knowledge, bul**hit.

Read his comments on TMBC.