Stories to look forward to in the next edition of Manchester Matters
27/06/2011
Metrolink’s new service to south Manchester will not start for at least another week, Transport for Greater Manchester has said.
A key part of last weekend’s work to prepare the line for passenger service this week could not be completed.
Engineers and technicians from Thales, the contractor delivering a new tram management system, will now need to re-schedule this part of the testing and commissioning for the coming weekend (2-3 July).
More of this story in the July edition of Manchester Matters magazine
26/06/2011
The fall-out from last month’s local elections which saw Labour sweep to power has continued with Liberal Democrats complaining to Transport Minister Norman Baker after being denied a major position on the new body in charge of Greater Manchester’s public transport.
The Transport for Greater Manchester Committee (TfGMC) – the successor to GMITA – has convened with Manchester Labour councillor Andrew Fender as chairman and Wigan Labour councillor Mark Aldred as vice chairman and chairman of the Bus and TfGM Services sub-committee which deals directly with operators.
Former Chairman Councillor Roger Jones - who lost his seat in Salford three years ago over his support of congestion charging – is back as a vice chairman and also chairman of the Capital Projects and Policy sub-committee.
The third vice-chairmanship along with the sub-committee which deals with Metrolink and Rail has gone to Tameside Tory councillor Doreen Dickinson, leader of the seven-strong Conservative group.
But there are no positions for the Lib Dems who have just four members of the 33-strong group following the party’s poor showing in the local elections. They have run the authority for the last three years in coalition with the Conservatives.
More of this story in the July edition of Manchester Matters magazine
25/05/2011
Oldham Council has tonight agreed the next step towards joint working with Rochdale Council.
At Full Council tonight (Wednesday, May 25) it confirmed the appointment of five members to the new Oldham and Rochdale Advisory Joint Committee.
The committee has been established to oversee the development of any joint working between Oldham and Rochdale. Recommendations made by this committee will then be considered by both authority’s Cabinets and Full Council.
The members appointed were:
1 Cllr Jim McMahon
2 Cllr Shoab Akhtar
3 Cllr Howard Sykes
4 Cllr Jackie Stanton
5 Cllr Jack Hulme
Rochdale Council had already appointed its five members to the committee at the Annual Council meeting on Wednesday, May 18.
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06/05/2011
Labour look almost certain to regain control of transport policymaking in Greater Manchester from the coalition after the Lib Dems were given a bloody nose at the local elections last night.
The number of councillors which each of Greater Manchester sends to the new Transport for Greater Manchester committee depends upon the political make-up. With Bolton, Oldham, and Bury councils becoming Labour-controlled and big Labour gains in Manchester, Rochdale, and Stockport, the annual meeting on June 24 will see a Labour majority of 20 to 13.
More of this story in the May edition of Manchester Matters magazine
28/04/2011
Greater Manchester will need a huge power boost if its bid to persuade drivers into electric cars succeeds.
The amount of electricity needed for an electric car to drive 80 miles is the same as an average home’s daily consumption and experts believe that so many drivers will switch over the coming decades that 60 per cent of all mileage will be by electric cars by 2050, creating massive demand.
Oldham Council’s cabinet will meet in June to formalise its position as the lead authority to spend a £3.6 government grant is to set up across Greater Manchester 300 fast charging points able to charge a typical vehicle in three to four hours, and five rapid chargers able to charge a vehicle in an astonishing 15 minutes.
But one of its partners in the project, Electricity North West, is warning that there will have to be a increase in supplies.
More of this story in the May edition of Manchester Matters magazine
26/04/2011
The UK’s number one restaurateur* is heading the line-up for Bolton’s sixth Food and Drink Festival.
Michael Caines, the two Michelin-starred chef at the Gidleigh Park restaurant in Devon and executive chef of Abode Hotels, will open this year’s foodie extravaganza.
The festival, which last year pulled in an estimated 75,000 visitors, will take place from Friday, August 26 to Monday, August 29.
The four-day festival, organised by Bolton Council, will take over Victoria Square and Oxford Street, with plans to expand this year’s event even further around the town centre.
More of this story in the May edition of Manchester Matters magazine
26/04/2011
First regional managing director North Dave Alexander has apologised to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) for the way his company raised fares this month.
Furious transport leaders threatened to tear up their voluntary agreements with bus operators and use the law to control fares after First Manchester managing director Richard Soper wrote to them all, apparently blaming their own rises in concessionary fares for increasing First’s fares in the area.
Mr Alexander has met with TfGM chairman Councillor Keith Whitmore and has now written a letter apologising for the “misunderstanding and tensions” caused by Mr Soper’s letter.
More of this story in the May edition of Manchester Matters magazine
22/04/2011
Network Rail today reveals stunning new images of the future station at Manchester Victoria. The announcement came on the day that George Osborne, MP for Tatton, visited the station to hear about the benefits rail investment brings to local people and businesses.
The new visuals show how the station could look in less than five years time. They are an early indication of how the station could be transformed into a major regional interchange, with plans for wider investment being developed separately as part of the Northern Hub scheme. With this added investment, improvements to the railway in the region would top £700m, including newly electrified lines between Manchester and Liverpool.
More of this story in the May edition of Manchester Matters magazine
18/04/2011
A new 10p parking charge for Trafford Council-owned pay and display car parks and on-street parking areas is being introduced two months ahead of schedule.
Following the announcement to change parking tariffs in March after a consultation with residents, local businesses and key organisations within town centres the proposed date for change was June, but the Council says it recognises that businesses need support and it has worked hard to bring the new charge in sooner.
Feedback from the consultation showed consultees were in favour of a low cost or free initial charge to encourage people to make better use of the town centres and that all day parking prices in off-street car parks should be increased slightly.
From April 22, people using the relevant council car parks will see new lower charges from 10p for one hour, 30p for two and 70p for three hours, for a full list of charges please visit www.trafford.gov.uk/parking. There will be updated information on each machine and signs for lower charges at the entrance to car parks to remind visitors of the new tariffs.
More of this story in the May edition of Manchester Matters magazine
11/04/2011
Coaches are likely to play a bigger part in providing Greater Manchester’s transport needs, leaders believe. But a London-style quality contract scheme with bus operators bidding for routes is not being ruled out.
And the plan warns that people in towns like Oldham will pay for the long-awaited Metrolink line with worsening congestion from town centre roadworks in the next two years.
More of this story in the April edition of Manchester Matters magazine.
07/04/2011
An incredible 8,000 people have started work in Greater Manchester under the AGMA Future Jobs Fund (FJF), the largest programme of its type in the country, in 16 months since the scheme began in November 2009.
The ten AGMA councils, Jobcentre Plus and key partners like GMPTE, GM Police, Manchester Solutions and the NHS have worked in partnership to give unemployed young people a chance to enter the labour market. It has been a great success across Greater Manchester and, since it started, long term unemployment for 18-24 year olds in Greater Manchester has gone down by 40 per cent.
Click here to meet some of them
More of this story in the April edition of Manchester Matters magazine.
04/04/2011
Furious transport chiefs are threatening to tear up their voluntary agreements with bus operators and use the law to control fares after a round of shock increases this week.
It would mean invoking the Transport Act to force “quality contracts” on the operators and give councillors the power to fix fares and timetables.
The first ever meeting of Transport for Greater Manchester was marred by anger at local bus companies – in particular First – who put up fares this week at the same time as the authority’s concessionary fares moved from 80p to half the commercial price.
More of this story in the April edition of Manchester Matters magazine.
31/03/2011
Greater Manchester’s biggest bus company is increasing “almost all” its fares and blaming the imminent rise in concessionary fares.
First Manchester says it needs to raise single fares by up to 20p to recover a shortfall which will be created when schoolchildren and pensioners are moved from a flat 80p concession before 9.30am to half the commercial fare on Sunday (April 3).
Meanwhile, Stagecoach Manchester today also announced a 10p increase in single fares from Sunday.
More of this story in the April edition of Manchester Matters magazine.
24/03/2011
The Department of Transport has announced the four short-listed bidders for the new West Coast Main Line franchise which is due to start on 1 April 2012 and will run for 14 years with an option to extend for a further year.
They are:
• Virgin, the current holders
• Abellio, the Dutch firm which is part of the Northern Rail consortium
• First Group, which operates TransPennine Express
• French consortium of SNCF and Keolis
The winner will be announced in May.
More of this story in the April edition of Manchester Matters magazine.
24/03/2011
Manchester Airport has been named as one of the government's new Enterprise Zones and phase one of the 60-acre “airport city” will start early next year.
Charlie Cornish, Chief Executive of Manchester Airports Group (MAG), said today: “Our development programme will expand the world freight terminal, create new business space, attract global businesses and provide health related uses. It will build upon the proximity of Wythenshawe Hospital as an international centre of excellence, science, research and advanced manufacturing.”
The news came on the same day that Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, announced that Manchester had been selected as the location for its newest contact centre.
It will be operational next year with up to 160 staff and operate in addition to Etihad’s existing contact centres in Abu Dhabi, including the newly opened Al Ain contact centre, India and Australia.
Etihad is working with MAG to identify a suitable location on the airport campus for the centre.
And 35 jobs have been created following Emirates Airline introduction of a third daily service at the airport. The positions will be available both at the airport and at the airline’s European call centre in Wilmslow. Once filled, the jobs will take the total number of Emirates employees in the region to more than 400.
More of these stories in the April edition of Manchester Matters magazine.
07/02/2011
The devastation in Coronation Street may have been no fault of the Manchester tram which plunged of the viaduct but cancellations and delays on the line to Corrie’s new home is bringing the system into disrepute, say councillors responsible for the publicly-owned Metrolink network.
It was revealed last month, just days after the Weatherfield tram crash which gripped the nation, that a new custom-built set for the 50-year-old soap will be built next to the Imperial War Museum North in Trafford as Granada joins the BBC is a move to MediaCityUK in Salford Quays.
But Street stars and TV executives alike would have been distinctly unimpressed by the service on the high profile new line which opened in late September.
The whole service was suspended for more than a fortnight last month after problems switching from an old railway signalling system to the modern way of controlling trams by drivers’ line of sight.
Now, three of the most senior members of Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority, including chairman Ian Macdonald, are demanding improvements.
15/12/2010
The busiest bus route in Britain is to become the exclusive preserve of “quality” operators.
More than 10m passengers a year use the 192 service on the A6 between Stockport and Manchester and it has become so famous that there is even an album of songs devoted to it.
Now, three public bodies – Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority, and Manchester and Stockport Councils – are preparing to designate the route a “Quality Partnership Scheme” which will create priority for buses along the nine-mile route…but only for operators who sign up to pledges on punctuality, reliability, and standards.
Read the full story in the January edition of Manchester Matters..
01/12/2010
COMMUTERS and shoppers could be without trains in the busy days between Christmas and New Year as the rail union, the RMT launches a strike ballot over extra payments to staff on Manchester’s local operator Northern Rail.
The ballot will open next Tuesday and run until December 20 and if there is a yes vote, conductors could walk out with seven days notice.
Normal services were due to resume on Monday, December 27, the first date which a legal walkout is possible and which is a bank holiday along with the following day.
Read the full story in the December edition of Manchester Matters...25/11/2010
The government has signalled the death knell of congestion charging by telling Greater Manchester – where the idea was crushed by people power two years ago – that it needs the agreement of all ten of its districts before any new plans can be introduced.
And a local politician who has just regained the council seat he lost two years ago because of his support for road pricing believes it will be at least a decade before anyone even dare suggest the idea again.
Read the full story in the December edition of Manchester Matters...
Councils and health authorities across Britain could follow the lead of Greater Manchester which is preparing to introduce a new bylaw setting minimum alcohol prices in a bid to combat binge drinking.
The bylaw will forbid the sale of booze at less than 50p a unit and will also ban cheap loyalty offers in bars. It would mean that a bottle of red wine would have to cost around £4.80 and a pint of lager no less than £1.40. Anyone breaking the bylaw will be fined up to £500.
The move is likely to be resisted by
big supermarkets who use cheap drink as loss leaders to attract custom.
Read the full story in the December edition of Manchester Matters...
The days are finally numbered for the hated Pacer trains which have become synonymous with Greater Manchester.
They will have to be scrapped by 2019 because they will no longer meet disabled accessibility laws.
Some of the trains, built in the 1980s by a hard-up British Rail as an experiment to see if trains could be built using bus parts, became known as the “Oldham five” when the Department for Transport insisted on sending them to other parts of the country when the Oldham loop closed for conversion to Metrolink.
Now, however, there are fears that Greater Manchester’s current overcrowding problems will get worse once the Pacers go.
Steven Clark, Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive’s Rail Programme Director, said: “Whilst national rolling stock plans are unclear, the previous government had developed a policy of not ordering any new diesel vehicles.
“Should this policy continue, and given the requirements for more capacity to meet growth and the need to scrap existing fleets within ten years, it is not clear that the current heavy rail electrification programmes alone can provide enough stock to resource future services.”
Mr Clark and his colleagues are to spend the next six months investigating the case for “tram-trains” – trams which can travel on ordinary railway lines as well as tram tracks.
Read the full story in the December edition of Manchester Matters...
22/11/2010
Greater Manchester needs to hurry and choose a site for its high speed rail station, an Oldham councillor says after talks with a government minister.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has given experts until next December to recommend the route from London to Manchester, Leeds and South Yorkshire.
But Councillor Richard Knowles, who met junior transport minister Norman Baker, said: “What was impressed on me was the need for Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds to get their act together and identify station sites.
Read the full story in the December edition of Manchester Matters...19/11/2010
A ban on cycles on Manchester’s Metrolink will remain in force after a working party found that it would cost £3.3m to make room for them on the fleet of trams.
The findings of the working group have been accepted by Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority – but the door has been left open for a change when Metrolink’s original fleet is refurbished in a few years time.
Read the full story in the December edition of Manchester Matters...
17/11/2010
The residents of Weatherfield drawing close to devastation next month when a tram crashes into Coronation Street are facing their doom with Parliamentary best wishes behind them.
It has become tradition at Westminster for MPs to pay tribute to the fallen at Prime Ministers Question Time but now an all-party group Greater Manchester MPs have been joined by colleagues from all over the country in a Commons motion of support for the Street in its hour of need.
They include the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party and Manchester Central MP Tony Lloyd, Salford-born Tory MP for Altrincham and Sale West Graham Brady, and Withington Lib Dem John Leech.
Their early day motion congratulates “all those involved in the production of Coronation Street both in front and behind the cameras on the occasion of the programme's 50th anniversary”.
Read the full story in the December edition of Manchester Matters...
09/11/2010
The same technology which brought Aliens versus Predator and Call of Duty to the screens of millions of gamers is being used in Greater Manchester…to bring bus station plans alive!
Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive has hired global architects Aedas to design new interchanges at Altrincham and Bolton …and along with the plans come high-tech “fly-throughs” which give virtual tours in 3D complete with moving cars, buses, and people…and a soft music accompaniment.
The animations are perfect for consulting the public on planning applications and are a far cry from the old days when interested parties had to pour over architects’ plans at town halls. Instead they can now visit GMPTE’s website for a virtual tour of the bus stations at the click of a mouse.
Consultations at Bolton began in January and an outline planning application was submitted to Bolton Council in April. Permission to move the bus station next to the railway station was granted in June. Building could start in 2012 and be finished by 2014.
Officials and the architects have amended designs to take into account comments and they now want more comments before a detailed planning application is submitted to Bolton Council early next year.
GMPTE carried out a series of improvements at Altrincham Interchange last summer as the first phase of an improvement package. Consultation on more improvements has just closed and officials are now considering the responses to finalise a full planning application to Trafford Council. Building could start next year and be finished by 2013.
Aedas senior architect Adam Hirst said: “We have a specialist team using computer game technology who take a couple of weeks after the drawings are finished to build the animations.
“The technology has been around for 10 or 15 years but it has really accelerated for this kind of thing over the last 18 months as the quality has got a lot better.
“We are not unique but not every architect uses them and we are finding an increased demand for the animations from clients.”
The animations can be seen at: http://www.gmpte.com/corporate/bolton_bus_station_design_2010.cfm?submenuheader=2
and
http://www.gmpte.com/corporate/altrincham_consultation.cfm?submenuheader=2