Plans to employ a Director in charge of looking at extensions for the Midland Metro have been scrapped – after a six month feasibility study. It had originally been decided that a Director – with an annual salary of £100,000 – would be employed to work alongside Wolverhampton City Council Chief Executive, Richard Carr, to find funding for extension to Brierley Hill and into Wolverhampton City Centre.
The Director’s salary would have been jointly funded by the Councils of Wolverhampton, Walsall, Sandwell and Dudley and also Centro – but with the decision not to go ahead the £100,000 can now be saved.
Richard Carr is quoted in the Wolverhampton Express and Star as saying: “Rather than appoint a permanent Metro director, we have instead decided to do the necessary work in stages and to commission specific pieces of work as we complete each stage.”
Cllr Paddy Bradley, Wolverhampton City Council’s Regeneration Chief, added: “The decision to look at this was taken before the elections in May when Labour still controlled the council. The job would be an obscene use of public money given the current economic climate, especially when we have experienced people within all the civic centres of the Black Country who could do this job between them.”
Source: Wolverhampton Express & Star