It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good – for the Liverpool bid through Merseytravel to build line 1 of the tri-terminus electric tram system appears to have hit the buffers. The Department for Transport, who were prepared to put up most of the capital cost, have now withdrawn their funding offer following months of unresolved legal and political arguments between Knowsley and Liverpool Councils and Merseytravel about who was going to pay the increased costs of the scheme.
Alistair Darling, The Secretary of State for Transport, has said that he still intends to continue to support good value transport schemes in Merseyside and that, with the demise of Merseytram, a great deal can still be done here through other transport improvements. His Department would now welcome a discussion with Merseytravel to develop a worthwhile package of improvements, apparently in order to decide how the now unallocated £170million should be spent.
With Southport routinely playing second fiddle to Liverpool, in transport as in other matters, we now have no bus station, a ramshackle railway station and the worsening of already inadequate road links in the town centre with the introduction of pedestrianisation. It is necessary, indeed essential, that we invest in a proper bus station, a revamped railway station and a link road between London Street and Tulketh Street or Virginia Street for which plans were considered some years ago.
However, these plans may very well have been shelved so as to allow funding to be concentrated on the Liverpool tram service, which is now an undoubted non-starter. So the question is: what is going to happen to Merseytravel’s unspent millions? We in Southport would appreciate, and certainly deserve, a reallocation of part of this money to carry out these delayed improvements to Southport’s main transport hub. Undoubtedly those in Liverpool will want it all spent in their City. The Southport Party sympathises with Liverpool for not being allowed to build a continental-type tram service for their 2008 City of Culture presentation. Nevertheless, the City, together with Merseytravel, should now be realistic and allow other transport schemes to go ahead in other parts of the network, using the money left over after their failed Government partnership. Surely some of these ‘ill winds’ should be used to help solve some of Southport’s longstanding transport problems, for, after all, we have waited too long already for our tatty rail terminus to be improved and a replacement bus station to be built.