Examination of Witnesses (Questions 244-265)
Q244 <Chair:
Good afternoon, and welcome to this session of the Transport Select
Committee here in Birmingham. Could I ask you please to give your
name and the organisation that you representing?
Gerald Kells: Gerald
Kells. I'm representing the West Midlands Regional Sustainability
Forum, which covers all the major non-governmental, environmental
and amenity organisations.
Martin Hancock:
Martin Hancock, National Express. I'm here in the context of the
largest bus operator in the West Midlands.
Tim Walley: Tim
Walley, I'm representing the Retail Bid District.
Nicola Moss: Nicola
Moss, representing London Midland.
Q245 <Chair:
What's the most important transport investment that's required
in this region at the moment in terms of helping the economy?
Martin Hancock:
I've had the advantage of listening to everyone else, but from
my perspective, one of the key obstacles and challenges we face
is the fact that we actually haven't mentioned the bus system
in the West Midlands. 90% of all public transport use within the
West Midlands is actually carried by buses, which amounts to 300
million passengers a year. Rail is important, but it carries about
30 million. Therefore, in this context, buses are very important.
For us, the most important investment is actually in making sure
the bus can fulfil its function in meeting the needs of a large
number of people in getting around the conurbation easily, quickly
and reliably. It's a theme that Councillor Hunt was actually picking
up on. The city centre of Birmingham is key to bus passengers,
not only in bringing people in to the city centre, but actually
allowing them to connect and move on and get access to jobs. Often
we've heard discussions today about large projects. We're not
against large projects and long-term investments, but we need
short-term measures to actually ease the flow of the buses, benefit
bus passengers and give people access to jobs. That is key for
us.
Gerald Kells: I
think we need a balance of public transport investment across
the conurbation. I noticed in listening that you've heard a lot
about Birmingham. I was involved in the Black Country Study and
all the work that ran up to the Black Country Study, and I think
it's very important that we acknowledge that the Black Country
is very much the drain on the economy in terms of the economics
of the conurbation. It has by far the weakest economic output.
Everything that you've heard has concentrated on transport in
Birmingham. There was a statistic that shocked me when I was engaged
in that study and that I had not previously realised. I actually
live in the Black Country, but when I moved into the Black Country
in the 1970s, the retail spend there was equivalent to the retail
spend in Birmingham. When we did the study, the retail spend throughout
the Black Country—and that's including Merry Hill—was
a quarter of what it is in Birmingham. This is related directly
to what is happening in transport terms.
Walsall, which has a population of 320,000, is a
major Black Country centre and has a rail link to Birmingham and
out to Rugeley, had its rail link to Wolverhampton closed because
there weren't sufficient people using it between the two major
centres of the Black Country. It would take me virtually as long
from Walsall to get to Stafford as it would to get to London,
by train. The links between Walsall and Lichfield are a one hourly
bus service. Now, clearly, this relates to the economic problems,
but this has happened over a long period and it's related to the
transport infrastructure. As we have concentrated transport infrastructure
on Birmingham, so the retail and the housing investment has decreased
in the Black Country. These were the things that we discussed
when we were doing the Black Country Study and through the Regional
Spatial Strategy Part 1 that dealt with the Black Country. I would
balance it. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be investing in many
of the things that you've heard, but it's a very Birmingham-centric
approach. If we're to balance it and have a more sustainable approach
we need people to support their local centres where we have a
more balanced population; at the moment, the Black Country particularly,
and some of the districts at the edge of Birmingham, do not have
the aspirational high-earning people within them to create a balanced
community. So there is a definite need to look at it more widely.
This is the last point I will make, but I know that
HS2 has the potential to make that worse. About half of Centro's
benefits rely on additional infrastructure from HS2 into the conurbation.
Now, from the point of view of places like the Black Country,
if you don't have that, then they will be the sufferers from HS2,
and all the concentration will be on benefits either around the
airport, or in the city centre.
Tim Walley: Certainly,
I would support investment into public transport. In terms of
retailing: retailing is all about people's choices. Birmingham,
over the last seven years, has developed a retail district that
is second only to the West End of London, which is probably one
of the reasons why people don't shop in Walsall. It's all about
choice and it's all about selection. Incidentally, we employ about
30,000 people within the sector within Birmingham. The Bull Ring
itself attracts about 40 million customers a year, so we are very
reliant on public transport. I would say that there is need for
public investment, certainly on the railways and buses, to ensure
that our customers travel into the city safely and cheaply.
We need those timetables to actually match what retail
is doing, because there has been a sea change in terms of hours
that we operate and days that we operate. Our second biggest retailing
day is now Boxing Day, and there are no trains that run on Boxing
Day. In this current climate that cannot be right. Buses on Boxing
Day will have a Sunday timetable, which really is not that supportive
of the retail district. So there is a lot that is happening in
Birmingham. The major thing that is happening as far as public
transport is concerned in the retail district is the investment
going into New Street station, because that, as the gateway into
this city, will lift people's expectations.
Nicola Moss: I'd
like to build on what Mr Hancock said. The whole public transport
mix is vital for the economy of the West Midlands and the wider
area, but rail also has a vital part to play in that. Over the
past 10 years there has been something like a 60% demand increase
for passenger rail across the West Midlands and the Chiltern area.
Currently, London Midland covers from Liverpool into the West
Midlands and then down the West coast into serving Euston, providing
that mix of inter-regional and within-region transport. We carry
53 million passengers a year and the recently published West Midlands
Route Utilisation Strategy, which is now up for consultation,
forecasts 32% growth over the next 10 years in passenger demand.
That really shows the strength of it. We've seen that ourselves
with the new timetables that were introduced in December 2008
at the end of the West Coast upgrade. That provided a brand new
start for service for passengers on the Trent Valley, serving
stations that hadn't had long-distance connections for a very
long time. We've seen phenomenal growth and that has not yet capped
out. You are looking at 20% plus growth on passenger journeys
year on year. So the potential for rail to fulfil that need and
move people around, be it for spending in the economy or participating
in employment in the economy, is very important.
Q246 <Paul
Maynard: To what extent do you think the separate
Local Enterprise Partnerships for Birmingham and Solihull and
the Black Country will be an improvement on what existed before
the transport functions of the RDA? And to what extent are they
more likely to deliver local improvement than say, a city region,
could have done? To what extent do you think those structures
will actually be fit for purpose and achieved?
Chair:> Do you
know the current situation in relation to LEPs? I don't think
the Black Country one has been accepted, has it?
Q247 <Paul
Maynard: It hasn't yet been approved, no. If it
were approved?
Gerald Kells: We
have a difficulty with LEPs. They are in an emerging situation.
I sit on the Third Sector Transport Forum for this region, and
the third sector, and more specifically the environmental sector,
has had very limited engagement with the development. If you look
at the LEP bids across this region, you will find virtually no
reference to environment or any of the social issues that concern
us. We think there is a long way to go to get LEPs right. I was
directly involved in the Regional Transport Partnership, I was
the Vice-Chairman of that, so we had a very great stake in ensuring
that we had mature discussions. Ignorance was mentioned earlier;
my experience is that ignorance goes all kinds of ways in the
transport debate. Certainly when I was working on the M6 Expressway
it was the objectors who really understood it rather better than
most of the other people as it turns out. But we were engaged.
There is no clear engagement with the third sector. That does
worry me. I think it's important that they are engaged. They have
been the people who have generally been promoting the smaller-scales
schemes and have been challenging and bringing out ways, through
scrutiny and all the other things that we did, of improving what's
happening in transport.
If I could mention one example of somewhere slightly
further out in the region. If you were to look at Hereford—which
is just going through its core strategy process and is promoting
very heavily its Hereford Bypass which has no funding from anywhere—it
is skewing all its housing and economic development towards promoting
a bypass—which would be our argument anyway—and I
would question whether the LEP in that area will be challenging
that and saying, "Actually, there are simpler, cheaper things
that we can do in Hereford." You could say the same of some
of our other towns. The challenge over those issues has come from
the engagement of the third sector. So I do worry about whether
the LEPs are yet fit for purpose, whether they will have the engagement
and whether they will carry the support beyond the very narrow
economic groupings that are supporting them at the moment.
Nicola Moss: It's
very much an emerging position for us at the moment. We will be
working closely with the new system. On a positive side, the LEPs
will bring about a really close working relationship between a
range of public and private sector organisations, which will be
the strength and success of the organisations. There is a risk
with the smaller geographic sphere of interest of the organisations,
but that being said, different ranges of investment schemes deliver
big benefits. Investment in targeted small areas on a local agenda
can deliver huge benefits and unlock growth in public transport,
so we wait to see how it pans out.
Q248 <Paul
Maynard: To Mr Hancock specifically: clearly buses
have a role in economic policy, but they also have a role in social
policy, do they not, in terms of the people who use buses? Where
do you think the balance lies between the two?
Martin Hancock: I think it's very
important that wherever the discussions about longer-term transport
policy are developed, we don't actually forget the whole social
issue. Large numbers of people need access to bus services just
simply to move around and function on a daily basis. I don't think
it necessarily matters how people are represented, as long as
all those parties in the debate remember the key facts about the
how the city actually works and the conurbation actually works
on a day-to-day basis. That is perhaps why I am not so worried
about the actual structures and the responsibilities. There can
be a tendency to talk about the major projects but then to forget
that, while High Speed 2 is very good, it doesn't really impact
on the 100,000 people that come into Birmingham City Centre by
bus every day. It's important in terms of the long-term development
of the city centre, which will obviously generate jobs etc, but
for the next 10 years probably, these people actually have to
be able to access jobs and access a thriving retail centre. I
am worried that we may take our eye of the ball. Birmingham City
Centre has done very well, but 10 years is a long time and other
city centres can develop. We could see a situation where it's
not attractive to come to Birmingham City Centre, or it's more
attractive to go to other city centres. That would be very bad
news for the West Midlands.
Q249 <Julian
Sturdy: We've heard a lot about how important High
Speed 2 is to Birmingham from a lot of people, and I am not going
to dispute that at all. Do you fear that, as you've touched on
already, the hinterland and some of the more rural areas around
the city might end up suffering in the longer term due to lack
of road improvements because there is not going to be much there,
a lack of rail improvements in the new rail halts or lack of bus
services, potentially, because there's not going to be much money
there? If that's the case, do you think that then that's where
the Local Enterprise Partnerships are going to have to pick up,
or try and pick up, the slack?
Martin Hancock:
I think the particular challenge that Gerald has indicated is
actually in the Black Country. Yes, moving around, operating buses,
operating any vehicles, including freight vehicles, hasn't really
developed much in 30 years. It is still very slow. It does take
a long time to run a bus service in from Dudley to Birmingham.
You wouldn't think it's only eight miles. The distance is very,
very short but you are talking about journey times of an hour,
which are obviously simply not attractive to anybody. It's those
types of scheme about speeding up relatively short journey lengths
that would benefit the whole of the conurbation, and particularly
the Black Country conurbation, and that may get lost. Certainly
we are keen that there is LEP for the Black Country and that it
can focus on this type of measure to improve the conditions in
the Black Country.
Q250 <Kelvin
Hopkins: One has to appreciate the importance of
buses, as Mr Hancock has said, and also the necessity of bus priority
schemes for them to work properly. I liked the comparison with
rail, because they're not all perfect substitutes as buses are
much more flexible and so on, but also I'd like to see the comparison
of passenger miles as well as passenger numbers. You might see
a slightly higher proportion going by train in terms of passenger
miles, because I suspect people do longer journeys by train rather
than by bus.
Martin Hancock:
I think that's the case, but there might also be a different social
mix. I don't have the figures and I don't know if London Midland
do, but obviously the role of the local rail network is to bring
commuters into Birmingham City Centre, which is very important.
The tendency is that they tend to bring the betteroff commuters
into the city centre, the professional side. Given the demographic
mix, the demographic distribution—where people live within
the West Midlands—those who tend to be unemployed and more
socially deprived are actually not generally served by local railway
services.
Q251 <Kelvin
Hopkins: It's the case in Britain that we certainly
have much higher rail fares and significantly higher bus fares
compared to the continent of Europe. This must act as a suppressant
on demand for the services, and for people to use cars instead.
How much do you think that is a factor, both of you?
Tim Walley: Within
our catchment, we have 7.5 million potential customers, within
an hour's drive time of Birmingham. We know that we actually drag
people in from way outside of that onehour drive time. In
terms of our latest customer research, 46% of our customers come
by car. That's not a bad thing, because they actually spend far
more money than those who come by train and bus, but the train
has actually gone down: 20% of our customers come by train and
29% come by bus.
Nicola Moss: In
terms of value for money, there is great public attention on rail
fares, but there is a range on value for money. Certainly in the
West Midlands, the average fare is under £2, which does represent
a good valueformoney offering for passengers.
Q252 <Kelvin
Hopkins: I've been a rail commuter for 41 years
and a lover of railways, but I used to work in an organisation
where the lowerpaid manual workers would come by car and
the professional workers would come by train, simply because of
the cost, and yet we have built lots of motorways; we have congestion;
all of which causes economic difficulty. Is there not a case to
be made for Government to think seriously about what they do about
fares?
Chair:> What
should be done about fares?
Tim Walley: From
personal experience, I commute from Leicestershire into Birmingham
every day. I used to come on the train. My problem then was that
the local council took over the car parking, so instead of having
free car parking at the station of departure, I suddenly was paying
£5 a day. Getting a train home in the evening, there was
only one an hour and every train at night I was standing.
Q253 <Chair:
Looking at the current position, are fare structures a disincentive
to people using trains?
Tim Walley: From
outside of the region—I can't qualify the £2—certainly
coming in from Leicestershire was not a cheap experience, and
it actually pays me to come by car.
Q254 <Kwasi
Kwarteng: I want to ask a specific question to
Mr Walley. Clearly retail has been a big success in terms of the
offering that you give people, and you mentioned in an earlier
answer that fewer people are coming by rail. In terms of the growth
of your developments, things like the Mailbox and all the rest
of it, what transport improvements would you like to see?
Chair:> What
improvements would you like to see?
Tim Walley: Certainly,
it's into public transport. It's having more trains or longer
trains, so that the experience is far more comfortable to consumers.
You only have to go into New Street Station every night at peak
times to see the overcrowding that's on trains. That can't be
a great finish to the day for somebody who's spent hours in Birmingham
shopping. Similarly for buses, they need to look at the timetable
to make it more in keeping with trading hours of a city centre.
Gerald Kells: Coming
back on the point about prices, we did go around this circle in
terms of car parking, workplace parking levy. At one point, a
substantial amount of the business community, both in Birmingham
and the Black Country, were supporting it, and then it unravelled.
Clearly, there is a huge difference between those people who have
access to a free car parking space and those people who don't,
in terms of the mix. Equally, there is a very great distinction
between those people who have access to a free car parking space
within the Centro area at a railway station, and those people
who are out in the hinterland and, therefore, don't have a free
car parking space if they want to commute into the conurbation.
Those issues of the price on the other side of fares,
which is the comparative price, particularly for commuting, are
very important, but whether there is the political will to go
back over that or other means of charging to get into the conurbation
is uncertain. Clearly that was, and it was seen as, a way of actually
funding much of the investment that we wanted then in what was
called the Regional Funding Allocation, and the whole long list
of schemes, most of which we supported, a few we didn't. That
has gone away. Given the fiscal situation, one has to ask whether
those debates need to return to some of our cities, about how
you actually fund it, and whether that economic asset of free
car parking spaces, whether at retail or at business locations,
can be justified in the long term. It's a skewing of the value
of the land and everything else.
Q255 <Kelvin
Hopkins: The reality is, and this won't be something
that everyone will agree with, that we have our public transport
systems now run by private companies. They're driven by profit,
inevitably. Running fewer trains with more people at higher fares
you make more profit than running more trains at lower fares with
lower passenger usages. Buses are no doubt the same.
Martin Hancock:
It reflects the operating costs of the company. I think the Committee
is just about to start an inquiry in terms of the impact of the
different funding changes affecting the bus inquiry.
Chair:> Yes,
we're going to have an inquiry on buses.
Martin Hancock:
Going back to the cost benefits and the transport appraisal issue,
we estimate that something like 5% to 10% of our operating costs
are due to congestion in key centres—Birmingham city centre
and running around some of the Black Country—the costs are
there because of congestion. If we could actually keep the buses
moving quickly, we could run the same timetable, expand the timetable
in terms of the number of services, with fewer vehicles, if we
can save the vehicles. The problem is that, on a major corridor
coming into Birmingham, which could have 20 or 30 vehicles on
it, two or three of those will actually be stuck in the city centre,
at any one time, doing nothing. They're not helping the customer,
because the customer either wants to get to the shops or wants
to get home, after the end of the week. Keeping the key centres
moving, avoiding these periods of gridlock—we are actually
approaching periods of gridlock in the city centre.
Chair:> Perhaps
you'll contribute to our next inquiry, then.
Q256 <Gavin
Shuker: Very briefly on buses, on the railways
in the last 10 years we've seen a real renaissance, large
numbers of passengers. It's causing us problems in other areas.
On buses, it seems not to be the same story. I just wondered what
you're doing as an industry to challenge perceptions that would
enable people to use buses more efficiently.
Martin Hancock:
We are very keen. You've heard about the bus rapid transit proposals,
and we're certainly very keen to pursue those with the city council.
Actually, we were heavily involved in developing the current concepts.
We do believe that getting the bus closer to a train in terms
of its speed allows us to provide the quality.
Q257 <Chair:
What specific proposals are there to enable you to do that at
the moment?
Martin Hancock:
The specific proposals currently are the bus rapid transit.
Chair:> That's
the key area.
Martin Hancock:
The key for us is that those benefits spill out not just in terms
of a traditional rapid transit route, but the rapid transit proposals
will include bus priority measures that will benefit all bus passengers,
so all buses, not just rapid transit.
Q258 <Iain
Stewart: A question to Nicola Moss if I may: we've
heard a number of witnesses make the point that one of the benefits
of High Speed 2 will be the freeingup of capacity on the
classic rail lines. I'd be grateful if you could give me some
idea, looking within the Birmingham/Black Country/Coventry conurbation,
what sort of growth do you think you could achieve in rail usage
if the capacity was freed up with HS2?
Nicola Moss: It
is clear that that capacity freeingup will occur, but the
nature of operations at the moment being that, as a franchised
operator, our franchise ends in 2015, which is well inside the
HS2 horizon. It's certainly something that the rail industry as
a whole is looking at, and will be making plans for, but it's
not something specifically that is within London Midlands' current
horizon.
Q259 <Iain
Stewart: If you were granted your wish and you
had the franchise running indefinitely, could we see a step change
in rail usage into the centre of Birmingham from surrounding areas?
Nicola Moss: Absolutely.
There will be clear capacity created, because there are a number
of distinct passenger journeys that are made. There is a clear
demand, which underpins the HS2 business case, for the inter-city
straight London to Birmingham and onwards market. Equally, that
intermediate market of Coventry, the Trent Valley, Rugby, Northampton,
those locations, the more capacity there is to serve those locations,
the better that is for wide passenger growth, and bringing people
to encourage that modal shift on to rail as part of the public
transport proposition. Certainly as an interim, the end of moderation
of competition on the west coast in 2012 does open up opportunities
for a variety of operators, both franchised and open access.
Q260 <Julian
Sturdy: A question to Mr Walley, if I can: the
Birmingham Retail BID has been channelling additional contributions
from city centre retailers into infrastructure schemes, potentially
including transport. Could you outline this a little bit further?
Has this worked? What sort of schemes has it helped?
Tim Walley: To
date, I don't think there's been any money put into any transport
schemes. It's been very much a case of looking at the retail area,
in terms of very basic stuff like cleanliness, security. They've
been the major challenges. The Bullring really stands on its own
as this new glossy empire. What we're attempting to do is to bring
the rest of the city centre retail district up to the same standard
as the Bullring. A lot of the Retail BID money is basically looking
at the infrastructure outside, the streetscapes, decluttering—really
basic stuff in terms of just lifting the whole profile of the
area.
Q261 <Julian
Sturdy: Do you work with the local authority on
that quite closely?
Tim Walley: Very
much so, yes.
Q262 <Julian
Sturdy: Do you see there's any scope for that expanding
into the local transport infrastructure?
Tim Walley: Very
much so, yes. We have been involved with Martin—not myself
personally from the Retail BID; it was our BID Chairman, Alan
Chatham, who was more involved, so far, in the discussions on
the Birmingham Sprint or whatever we want to call it. If that
helps get people around the city, to us it's very much the glue.
We want to bring people into the city and then, once we've got
them in the city, we want to take them around the city.
Q263 <Julian
Sturdy: It's that whole experience you're trying
to create.
Tim Walley: It
is very much so, yes.
Q264 <Chair:
Do any of you have any strong views on the current system for
appraising and approving transport schemes? Are there any strong
views on that?
Gerald Kells: Can
I just mention one thing in terms of HS2 and capacity? All the
capacity released by HS2 is south of Birmingham. I think that's
important; that would be where the release was, not north.
In terms of the appraisal, the dependence on traffic
time saving is something that has concerned us. I know in some
of the submissions you've had from our organisations nationally,
they've raised this point. When we looked at the access to the
western side, there were proposals to bring motorways up the western
side and we looked at the benefits. You have a mass of tiny, almost
insignificant, benefits, which were undetectable and then mounted
up. When you actually tried to link into the west side of the
conurbation, some of those benefits became completely questionable,
because actually they depended on link roads that you didn't know
could actually carry any more traffic if they were given extra.
The time savings depended on a traffic saving that a link road
simply hadn't the capacity to take over. There is a dependence
on small amounts of time savings that mount up, I know there are
examples given like Bexhill near Hastings, where it's been assessed
in detail. If you look at what I would call the big mistake of
the M6 toll and the time that took, that was all predicated on
these time savings that were allegedly going to happen.
Q265 <Chair:
It's the time-saving element that you query?
Gerald Kells: We
would like to see much more emphasis on both the local regeneration
benefit and on the social impacts. I think you were giving some
examples earlier; if you have a development and you can't get
to the door, you clearly need to build a road to get to the door
and that has a real economic benefit. If you're saying, particularly
with roads, "We'll put this infrastructure in and it will
help with overall congestion," you're almost certainly going
to immediately be undermined. That's the great lesson of the M6
toll, because all the benefits have disappeared and we are exactly
where we were.
The thing I'd just add to that, which relates to
Hereford and to some of these others, is that it isn't just the
money. I've spent 10 years of my life on the M6 toll, and a lot
of the schemes that you've talked about being developed—Metro
in the Black Country, Metro to the airport—all these things
didn't get done because of the amount of institutional and debating
time between myself and the business community, which was spent
on the M6 toll. It literally dragged all our time. It's not just
about spending a lot of time on these big schemes. There is an
effect on whether there is the institutional capacity to develop
the muchneeded small schemes.
Chair:> Thank
you very much for coming and for answering all our questions.
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