Metrolink expansion delays ongoing

It was way back in the 1980s that Manchester news media first reported that local government were considering expanding the tram system, but it wasn’t until 2001 that concrete action was taken in the form of half a billion pounds being set aside by the national government to expand the tram lines from Manchester’s city centre out into the Greater Manchester region.

The areas of Greater Manchester that would benefit from the expansion were Manchester Airport, Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne, Rochdale and Wythenshawe. But then in 2004 Manchester news media reported that the government had cancelled these plans due to financial constraints imposed by severely increased costs.

The expansion project had to be cut into two parts, part a, or ‘phase 3a’, as it was called, would now cost £520 million on its own and see the conversion of part of the Oldham Loop Line from Victoria Station to Rochdale, as well as the extension of the South Manchester Line to Droylsden and the East Manchester Line to St Werburgh’s road. A co-funding agreement for ‘phase 3b’ was later reached in 2009 and would see the further extension of all three projects that formed part of ‘phase 3a’; the East Manchester Line would be extended to East Didsbury and Manchester Airport, South Manchester Line would be constructed all the way to Ashton-under-Lyne and the Oldham and Rochdale Line would be routed through Oldham town centre and extended right into Rochdale’s town centre.

The benefits to be gained are considerable, the extension into Rochdale, for example, forms part of a separate multi-million pound project to redevelop and rejuvenate the town centre, while the phase 3 project in its entirety, dubbed “the big bang” by some Manchester news outlets because of its size, will see the Metrolink capacity almost doubled from its current ridership of 60,000 people per day, with 62 new stops and 60 kilometers of new track built, creating a greater synergy of public transport for one of the UK’s biggest cities.

This was according to Metrolink and local government officials at any rate, but the plans, apart from their complexity and ambitious size, have been dogged by funding, planning, community and worker issues throughout the last few years, especially since the construction of phase 3a began in 2008. The future of phase 3b hangs in the balance with a recent vote by the boroughs of Greater Manchester voting against the 3b plans by 79%, this is largely due to the city’s need to charge higher council taxes in order to meet funding shortfalls.

In recent weeks, the various projects that make up phase 3b have begun to be chipped away at by the national government as the new coalition government seeks to implement austerity measures aimed at bringing the government’s rampant deficit within manageable amounts. The Droylsden to Ashton extension, for example, was reported by Manchester news provider, Tameside Advertiser, to be on the chopping block as the government grew skeptical of whether their £120 million contribution to the £170 million project was ‘responsible’ spending.

In mid-June of 2010 the Rochdale Observer, reported that The Greater Manchester Transport Fund, the fund set up for the entire “big bang” project, which involves extensive redevelopment of Rochdale’s town centre, was re-considering whether to fund the £11.5 million construction of a transport interchange in the town centre. This, even though work has already begun on clearing the site and extending the line to Rochdale, none of which matters if the interchange is not built.

In Failsworth and Chadderton, two rail bridges (on Hardman lane and Drury Lane respectively) have been closed for months as conversion of the Oldham rail line into a tram line took place. They were meant to be opened in May and June respectively but delays are expected into July, causing ongoing traffic diversions and chaos during rush hour.

In West Didsbury, where one of the 60 new tram stops is planned for construction, residents have logged complaints due to concerns over traffic disruption and the noise, which could impact house prices on Burton Road and Leopald Avenue, while others have raised objection to the effect the tram station will have on the environment and local biodiversity. Environmental analyses are ongoing. Though this part of the project is being reviewed by the national government as well, suggesting that the objections and considerations raised thus far might be made irrelevant in any case.

The phase 3 extensions in their entirety were expected, according to the most recent figures, to cost £1.5 billion, with funding coming from both local and national government, but it seems that the size of the project may be too ambitious. It has created a complex bureaucracy involving contracts, sub-contractors, advisors, planners, local council members, government representatives and over 1000 people directly involved in building the new lines, only one third of which, it has now emerged, are from Greater Manchester.