We were once world leaders in tramways

There are both positive and negative aspects of having written this column for nearly 30 years. On the one hand, I have learnt from experience and that is incredibly valuable at times, but on the other, there is the trap of becoming cynical, of dismissing every positive development as bound to fail. I have strived all my life to avoid the latter, as no one wants to read about an old man’s pessimistic moaning and I will continue to do so.. Hope has to be in the air, or otherwise we all may as well give up and watch daytime TV on a permanent loop.

Therefore, let’s give at least one, possibly two, cheers to the fact that trams are back on the political agenda. It was dear old John Prescott who really embraced the concept when, in his Transport 2010 paper, published in 2000, he promised there would 25 tram schemes initiated over the next 10 years but in fact only one, a new line in Nottingham, was built within that timescale. Therefore, one has to be slightly wary of Rachel Reeves’ new commitment to trams which includes schemes in Manchester, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands. There are sums of money attached to each of these, but as various political columnists have point out, this by no means guarantees that any of them will be built.

The problem for Prescott was that he did not really have buy-in from the rest of the Cabinet, in particular from Alastair Darling, who both as Transport Secretary and later Chancellor, killed off so many tram schemes that it seemed he had a personal vendetta against them – Liverpool, Leeds, Gosport and several others all fell under the axe. Oddly both Darling and Prescott died recently and it left me musing whether the former would, on his deathbed, be proud of the face that the people of Leeds never got their trams, while Prescott, to his credit, had HS1 and various other projects he could have been proud of in his dying days.

Now let’s hope Reeves who is a Leeds MP says what she means, and wants to see these schemes through. Possibly on her deathbed, she will be able to see the Leeds trams thundering past. It’s not easy batting for transport projects in the context that transport spending is skewed by the fact that a quarter of the annual budget for investment (£7bn annually out of around £29bn) is eaten up by HS2. Without that, there would be rather more to spare, and there is always the danger that this huge money sink will require filling up again at some point during this Parliament.

But as an optimist, let’s hope that Reeves means to support the idea of trams because, God knows, Britain is well behind other countries in supporting light rail. As Back on Track, an excellent pamphlet by Britain Remade, a pressure group for industries seeking to build infrastructure, points out, we are particularly bad both in terms of the number of schemes in the country but also in relation to how much they cost to build.

We were once world leaders in tramways, a form of transport that was both cheap as well as being fast and effective. Yet, in what was one of the worst transport decisions ever made, all the tramway systems in the UK, apart from plucky old Blackpool, were scrapped in the post war obsession with the idea that cars were the only viable way of getting around.

The great tram revival spreading across the world has largely passed Britain by. Only seven cities can boast trams in the UK – contrast this with China, a country which went through a rapid period of motorisation over the past forty years where there is now a great emphasis on building both light rail and subway schemes. No fewer than 35 tramlines have been built there since 2010 while closer to home, in France, 21 cities have had new lines this century. Even the United States, where public transport is treated as an alien concept, some 27 towns and cities have at least one light rail line.

One of the reasons for the lack of enthusiasm behind tram schemes is the cost. I have just been to Edinburgh where the tram system has just been extended but that is only because the initial scheme had to be cut back in response to costs which soared above £1bn for what became just an 11 mile line. Yet, the public now loves it and annual patronage exceeds 10 million.

That is a typical example of the high costs of building schemes in the UK Britain Remade’s pamphlet points out that in Britain a mile of tramway costs £87m to build, double the average across Europe of £42m. As well as speeding up the planning system, something that Starmer’s government does seem to be making progress on, there are three other recommendations to reduce costs. First the Department for Transport should create a special delivery unit to bring forward schemes and create established standards for new schemes. Second, crucially reduce the cost of utility removal which is a huge burden for schemes by making sure that only really essential pipes and wires are moved. In fact, new methods of adapting utilities transmission are being developed, notably for the ultra light railway project in Coventry, that would enable far cheaper construction. Thirdly, local authorities, notably the new system of mayors, should be given more powers to raise money to fund schemes which are often popular and much needed locally. None of this is rocket science and yet even though most of these problems and solutions have been known about in transport planning circles for years, nothing has changed. Therefore Reeves’ new commitment to trams should be in the context of making changes to the system to enable these schemes to become a reality.

As Britain Remade argues, trams have huge advantages over other forms of urban transport. A single lane of a city street can carry 1,500 people in cars, 8,000 in buses and a staggering 22,000 if it used as a tramway. Moreover, people can be attracted onto trams out of their cars because of the comfort and reliability. Around 30 per cent of tram passengers in Nottingham would otherwise have driven. Everything points to the need for more trams in cities, which become an emblem of modernity and progress, with pictures of modern trams invariably featuring on local tourist and promotional material. Let’s hope Reeves is genuinely behind these schemes, and that ways to reduce costs, as suggested, can be deployed.

The 28,000 job claim madness

Regular readers will know I have an obsession with driverless cars, and will have to forgive me going off message on a topic that has little direct relevance to rail – although the government research money pouring into the driverless fantasy is another way that money is diverted away from far more worthwhile schemes.

But there is another reason to mention the complete insane press release from Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, which spoke of Uber being allowed to run driverless cars, without a safety driver, in 2026. It suggests that the Department for Transport is in hock to the tech brothers who are fundamentally opposed to any form of public transport. This is despite a series of failures of projects for self-driving vehicles, ranging to the cancellation of a test of lorries being self-guided to the recent abandonment of a driverless bus service over the Forth Bridge. Pursuing the idea of a technology which will solve transport problems may be tempting but it is fatuous.

That is not being Luddite. Technology can make a difference, but the idea that driverless cars will become ubiquitous is a distant prospect which, as I have stressed before, and the concept is unlikely to ever achieve the goals which the tech brothers claim for it. The notion that the government can say that there will be 28,000 jobs created by 2035 by supporting driverless cars which will in turn generate £42bn in extra income is just patent – and dangerous – nonsense, random figures plucked out of the air to support a fantasy. It does not take a genius to note that if there really were to be robotaxis driving around our streets, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of drivers would be displaced from their jobs. So the notion that this would be good for employment and growth makes no sense. And therefore the fact that the Transport Secretary can make these ludicrous claims undermines my faith that she will make rational decisions over other aspects of her role.

Thanks for your support.

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