Written evidence from West Midlands Friends
of the Earth (TE 110)
Birmingham FOE and more recently West Midlands FOE
have a long history of progressive campaigning with respect to
transport within the region; eg initially campaigning for the
pedestrianisation of parts of the City Centre and the removal
of subways to make the City a more pleasant place in which to
move about. The fruits of those campaigns are all too easy to
see today; the City Council and local businesses have seen the
benefits in more ways than one, including economic, and developed
a city centre of which we can all be proud. There is still a long
way to go and these initiatives have not been repeated to such
an extent in other parts of the City where the car still dominates
the urban scene.
Birmingham FOE along with cycling campaign group
Pushbikes were instrumental in putting cycling on the map in the
conurbation. Much of what has happened to increase cycling across
the region has taken place despite, not because, of the local
authorities. However, with smarter choices, the health agenda
and more awareness of the huge value for money from such investments
now is the time to bring cycling in from the cold. The development
of the LTP 3 provides us all with the opportunity to get the West
Midlands back in the saddle.
Birmingham FOE has a strong focus on reducing speeds
on our roads to enable the City to become a much cleaner, greener
and safer place in which to live, work and play. Much emphasis
is on reducing speeds with a 20's plenty campaign for much of
the City's streets to the fore. This would reduce air pollution,
climate change emissions; encourage more people to walk and cycle,
thereby improving the local economy. While this may result in
a loss of revenue to the DfT from fuel duty this should be seen
in a much more holistic manner of improving quality of life, reducing
admissions to our hospitals and generating local economic activity.
Birmingham FOE and latterly WMFOE were involved in
the campaigns during the late eighties and early nineties against
major road schemes through the South of the City to accommodate
traffic from the recently opened M40 on its journey to the City
centre. This was a huge community-based campaign which enabled
the City to embrace constraint of the long distance car commuter
to benefit local residents. This campaign also highlighted the
huge economic benefits which local shops on our arterial roads
bring to the City and its communities, as opposed to car-dependant
shops which take money out of the local economy and into the hands
of the large multinationals.
Our campaigns then focussed on inter regional schemes
such as the BNRR (lost as is evident by the M 6 Toll), the Western
Orbital Motorway, M6 widening in a number of formats and widening
of the M42 now operating with ATM.
We have actively been campaigning for much enhanced
provision for the bus and local rail as well as improvements to
the wider rail network and where appropriate Metro or ultra light
rail. A long fought battle with the City council has been over
bus lanes on the Tyburn Road to the north of the City. The bus
lanes were introduced, BUT were quickly removed after local elections
and to this day have not been restored and no other bus priority
provisions on that route have been put in place to enhance the
performance of the buses in that corridor. This highlights some
of the real problems within the City in terms of benefiting the
bus user and a real resistance to making real priority for the
bus. This can be seen all over the City where bus priority lanes
disappear just when they are needed; at the junctions. The bus
is the workhorse of the City; one where over 30% (Appendix 2)
of households do not have access to a car and yet the bus does
not attract the support from the City it requires and bus passenger
deserves. It has to be pointed out that buses in the West Midlands
were deregulated whereas they were not in London.
Positive campaigns that Birmingham FOE has been involved
recently have focussed on Bus Rapid Transit and the reopening
of suburban railway lines and local railway stations. The support
for walking and cycling has also continued as has an involvement
in the Local Transport Plan process.
As we approach 2011 the major issue from this sub
region is the focus on big is best and the lack of attention paid
to the local economy, cycling, walking, provision for the less
able and wider issues, such as air quality biodiversity loss,
resource use and climate change.
The recent announcements from the CSR and transport
decisions for this region were not dominated by road schemes and
two were public transport focussed and a major the road scheme
was one of ATM which, if introduced with strict 50 mph speed limits,
could improve vehicle efficiencies and help with air quality.
This could be a welcome step in the correct direction, we should
be going much further if we are going to enable the transport
sector to not only reduce its carbon emissions but to start to
make the deep cuts required to meet the commitments within the
Climate Change Act 2008. Also when we look at the DfT "Investment
in Local Major Transport Schemes" for the conurbation the
Midland Metro is in the Supported Pool, requiring more negotiations
while there are some worrying road schemes within the pre qualification
pool.
The other two items to raise that are high on the
agenda are High Speed Rail, HS2, and the extension of the runway
at Birmingham Airport.
We question HS2 on grounds of economy, especially
for that of the West Midland, whether it will deliver on our climate
change commitment, lack of connectivity with HS1 and the Continent,
land take, biodiversity loss and loss of farmland, whether in
these time it will distract from real transport solutions to all
regions of the UK and take money away from more sustainable solutions.
There are huge disagreements over the economic benefits or not
of this proposal and we would urge the committee to delve much
deeper than the current debate. If the majority of the economic
benefits accrue to London and not to the more distant regions
that this will enhance already wide regional disparities.
As far as the airport runway is concerned we acknowledge
that the planning application was passed in 2009, we were surprised
that the airport argued for a seven year time-frame in which to
start on the project. Recent information has indicated that the
airport will now no longer require the full length of runway as
planned for and as such will no longer need to place the A45 in
a tunnel. We also hear that they will agree on 3 November at a
BIA board meeting to pursue this strategy, BUT with the seven
local authorities of the West Midlands not only foregoing their
allocation of share dividends but also public money from Birmingham
City Council and possibly Solihull MBC paying to relocate the
road. Is this the correct manner in which to fund the aviation
industry??
The aviation industry often over estimates its impacts
upon the local economy as can be seen in an article from the Birmingham
Post in 2004 (see Appendix 1).
Have the UK's economic conditions materially changed
since the Eddington Transport Study and, if so, does this affect
the relationship between transport spending and UK economic growth?
The economic situation has changed dramatically and
we have seen the passing of the Climate Change Act 2008. This
should bring forward greater emphasis on smarter choices agenda
and the need to invest in ways of attracting people out of their
cars especially in urban areas.
We have also seen the smarter choices programme delivering
good value for money since the report was produced.
What type of transport spending should be prioritised,
in the context of an overall spending reduction, in order best
to support regional and national economic growth?
We should take support from road schemes away and
invest in the smarter choices that will have a number of benefits
for people their local environment and quality of life. This should
come through in support for the Sustainable transport Growth Fund
and not more money for large road schemes.
How should the balance between revenue and capital
expenditure be altered?
There should be a greater emphasis on the benefits
from revenue funding and against large capital projects. Again
through the smarter choices programme we can get much better value
from our inputs. This can be shaped in a number of interventions
such as support for bus operators, cycle training better provision
of information and coaching on how to use mass or public transport.
Revenue spending can help with improving efficiencies, it can
help reduce the need for investment in high cost capital projects
by reducing demand and promoting alternatives.
Are the current methods for assessing proposed
transport schemes satisfactory?
NATA many agree needs reform; from an overreliance
on small time savings to the revenue from fuel duty and there
are problems with the low costs of climate change emissions and
the future thinking on the price of oil. A root and branch overhaul
of NATA is required.
How will schemes be planned in the absence of
regional bodies and following the revocation and abolition of
regional spatial strategies?
We are moving into a new era of land use planning
and the voids that are now appearing with the demise of the RSS
are creating real problems as we try and plan our way out of our
current problems. AS yet we have no clear idea as to how the LEP's
will work with Transport Authorities and ITA's where they exist.
Where will the mediation come from between not only one authority
and another BUT the way in which a decision is made within the
DfT, without the GO's to advise with a real understanding of what
is taking place in that particular region. The debates over regional
priorities while vigorous were helpful to all concerned and produced
an agreed set of priorities we will possibly now have no hierarchy
and an increased number of bids coming in from more areas when
the allocations available are increasingly smaller. A lot of hard
work went into the regional DaSTS which could well be lost as
could contacts on the ground with local people who know their
patch. There will need to be an open and transparent process whereby
interested parties can have a say and access to the information
on future plans. Once again the role of smarter choices in this
process will be invaluable.
In terms of what forms of spending should be prioritised
the we would advocate the smarter choices options placing much
more emphasis on walking, cycling and public transport and drawing
out the benefits for health, quality of life and creating places
where people want to be. Thus would be counter to the business
as usual scenario of traffic dominated communities.
There should be far less emphasis on the loss of
revenue from fuel duty and much greater emphasis on the real costs
of the externalities from transport such as climate change, poor
air quality, costs to the health sector and poor land use.
APPENDIX 1
AIRPORT GROWTH PREDICTIONS PROVE WRONG
Birmingham Post, 9 August 2004, by Campbell Docherty
Birmingham International Airport has admitted
figures predicting the economic benefits to the West Midlands
of growth at the airport have proved dramatically wrong.
Campaigners against BIA expansion last night claimed
the "rash" forecasts meant the region should take the
airport's forthcoming case for a second runway - due in 2005 -
with a "large pinch of salt".
BIA said considerable changes in the aviation
industry were responsible for the wayward predictions, which were
part of the evidence considered by Solihull Council's planning
committee when it granted permission for passenger growth in 1996.
The airport produced a 10-year master plan in
1995, announcing the runway would be lengthened by 500 metres
and a predicted 10.5 million passengers per year would be using
the airport by 2005.
This, BIA claimed, would see an 80% increase in
jobs over the decade from 1994 at both the airport and in related
local industries and a 120% growth in wealth generated for the
West Midlands economy.
However, according to the BIA website, the current
economic impact of the airport - which remains on course to meet
the 10.5 million passengers figure despite the runway extension
still being on hold - is substantially less.
It shows there are now about 1,000 fewer jobs
than 1994 and there has been only a 20% increase in the airport's
contribution to the region's coffers over the decade.
Chris Crean, from West Midlands Friends of the
Earth which opposes the second runway, said: "The pain for
local residents affected by airport expansion is always tempered
by how many jobs are going to be created by the massive growth
in noise and pollution.
"However this does not appear to be the case.
BIA is growing according to plan with respect to passengers but
not jobs.
"When they make their rash job predictions
they should be taken with a large pinch of salt. This ten-year
milestone has allowed us all to see the predictions from BIA for
what they are.
"The Department for Transport should regard
these significant shortfalls very seriously indeed.
"We would like to see year-on-year evaluation
of the projections from the airport in terms of its job creation
potential and value to the regional economy."
He added: "We clearly cannot believe the
crystal balls of the operators of BIA.
"When they put their master plan up for consultation
in 2005 we will expect rigour from the region and the local planning
authority in how BIA spin out their projections of job creation
and value to the regional economy."
An airport spokeswoman said: "Forecasts included
in the airport's 10-year master plan, which was published in 1995,
took into account the industry trends and patterns at that time.
"Since then, the aviation industry has changed
considerably with, for example, the introduction of low fares
airlines and internet bookings.
"We are currently compiling a draft master
plan which will include research into the current and long-term
economic and employment benefits that BIA brings to the region.
This draft document is due to be released for consultation in
mid-2005."
She added: "All industries evolve and aviation
is no exception. We use the best figures available at the time,
as does the Government.
"Predictions can never be 100% accurate as
circumstances like the Iraq war, Sars and 9/11 can and do make
an impact on the industry.
"None of this detracts from the fact that
aviation creates wealth across several sectors as well as many
quality and long term jobs."
Transport economist Dr Pat Hanlon, from the University
of Birmingham, said the airport did play a vital role in the West
Midlands economy but said using ten-year predictions could be
misleading.
"I would concede that such economic predictions
are a notoriously difficult area to measure and it is valid to
say that it is not advisable to emphasise them when talking about
the impact of airport growth.
"However, in 1995 the original estimates
may have been wide of the mark but it was right to assume that
there would be a fillip to the economy from BIA expansion. There
is a very real effect on a region by an expanding airport and
areas that do not have airport growth tend to do quite poorly,"
he added.
APPENDIX 2
CAR OWNERSHIP FOR BIRMINGHAM FROM WEST MIDLANDS
PUBLIC HEALTH OBSERVATORY
http://www.wmpho.org.uk/localprofiles/population_carvan.aspx
RESULTS FOR SELECTED LOCAL AUTHORITY
| Geography Name |
Geography Code | Indicator
| Number of
Households | Percentage of
Total Households
|
| Birmingham | 00CN | Households with no cars or vans
| 150,401 | 38.49 |
| Birmingham | 00CN | Households with 1 car or van
| 163,000 | 41.71 |
| Birmingham | 00CN | Households with 2 cars or vans
| 63,732 | 16.31 |
| Birmingham | 00CN | Households with 3 cars or vans
| 10,654 | 2.73 |
| Birmingham | 00CN | Households with 4 or more cars or vans
| 3,005 | 0.77 |
November 2010
| 
