Steve Rotherham, who is the Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor, has suggested that should a Labour government get into power at the next general election they may be able to look again at plans for trams in Liverpool. The previous Merseytram project had got as far as being given the go-ahead but was ultimately thrown out by the Labour government of the time in 2007.<\/p>\n
The Merseytram project was part of the infamous culling of tram projects in England by Alistair Darling when he was Secretary of State for Transport \u2013 systems in Leeds (which has been in the news recently again as funding may become available to finally build it) and South Hampshire were also scrapped at the same time because of escalating costs. Locally much of the blame for the axing of Merseytram was put on infighting amongst local authorities. They had purchased rail for the construction of the network which was eventually sold on (for a fraction of the cost) with much of it now on the Isle of Man having been used on the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway and Manx Electric Railway.<\/p>\n
But now over 20 years since the plans were first put forward they could be reconsidered according to Steve Rotherham.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe had the money before Manchester for a tram. Our local authorities couldn\u2019t work together and we lost the money. We spent the money on rails but when we ended up selling them, we didn\u2019t even get the money for them. We ended up fighting each other and lost the opportunity to steal a march on Manchester.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at a meeting discussing the future of the Liverpool City Region he also said he had been in conversation with Mark Harper, Transport Secretary, about the post HS2 scrapping funding announcement and what it may mean for the region. Money has been promised and he said that if it does come through then they could \u201clook again\u201d at tram although he also mentioned trackless trams could be considered instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Steve Rotherham, who is the Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor, has suggested that should a Labour government get into power at the next general election they may be able to look again at plans for trams in Liverpool. The previous … Continue reading