West Midlands Could Miss Out on Coach Boom!

West Midlands CPT Urges "Spend Regions Allocation - Save Our Jobs" .

The West Midlands Region of the Confederation of Passenger Transport is very concerned that much needed financial resources are not being spent by Local Government quickly enough to improve the transport infrastructure here in the West Midlands.

Phil Bateman Regional Manager said “Our members here in the West Midlands are concerned to be informed that £100 million of much needed infrastructure money already allocated through the West Midlands Regional Funding Allocation Transport Programme. May well find its way back into the Treasury coffers, rather than be used to improve highways and public transport infrastructure here in the region. This money is precisely the sort of resource that is required to give the region the stimulus needed to save jobs and improve the regions economic performance in these bleak economic times.

West Midlands CPT Members feel it will be a very difficult task indeed to ask Government for even more transport resources, if Local Government in this region cannot spend monies already allocated. We feel that the recent timely West Midlands Assembly Independent Report written by former Birmingham airport managing director Brian Summers, a vice-chairman of the Regional Transport Partnership that warned of the problem. Is a warning that should be acted upon with haste.

Confederation of Passenger Transport members here in the West Midlands were shocked that there was so much disarray in the region, and the subsequent information that suggested that more than a third of the £275m allocated for the first stage of a 10 year investment programme, indicated that more than a third of the resource is likely to be unspent by our Councils at the end of the first three years. With the Department for Transport giving local authorities six months to get the programme back on track, we urge the partners to work hard to do just that. This region cannot allow much needed financial resources to be lost to the Treasury, or to be given to competing regions for use.
We further urge Local Government here in the region to bury any differences that they may have, to give improvements aimed at improving public transport schemes a priority.
Our members were further surprised that part of the report put together by the Regional Assembly made specific reference to a "parochial" approach by the region's 38 councils, the passenger transport authority Centro and the regional development agency Advantage West Midlands.
We have long felt that it is often the case that difficult strategic schemes are dragged out, whilst the 'quick wins' prosper.
Yet it is the strategic schemes that often offer the most gains for public transport and ultimately the region. Even if they are the hardest to bring about. Public transport is very much the key to ensuring that the West Midlands region can attract the right sort of investment that will bring long term prosperity here. Yet bus priority measures seem to be forever being delayed and are always at risk from being dropped from the 'to do ' list. West Midlands Local Government must do better and improve their spending profiles if we are to emerge from this recession without losing ground to other regions, and give a chance to other local industries to gain contracts and stimulate jobs."
Notes for Editor
1- The Confederation of Passenger Transport represents over 1,100 bus, coach and light rail operators nationwide. These range from multi-national companies like FirstGroup, Stagecoach, National Express, Arriva and Go-Ahead to small family-run coach and bus operations. The CPT also represent circa 100 supplier members, including: vehicle manufacturers; body-builders; vehicle suppliers; and a broad range of associated product and service providers to the road passenger and fixed track industries.

2- In the West Midlands there are more than 100 members of the Confederation of Passenger Transport. They are drawn from the five Counties that make up the West Midlands Region.