PTE to get cash ?
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y Alan Millar
THE GOVERNMENT is moving fast to stop its Transport Bill from being wrecked on the altar of the Tyne and Wear Metro.
When he gave evidence to the House of Commons transport committee inquiry into bus deregulation last week, Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley raised the question of the Metro, which many fear could be severely damaged by an upsurge in competition from buses which at present feed traffic on to it.
An all-party Tyne and Wear delegation impressed its fears on the committee — which includes three Tyne and Wear MPs (two Labour and one Conservative) — last month (CM, February 2), and the matter was raised again at the press conference to launch the Transport Bill.
Mr Ridley told the committee that he accepted the Metro was unique and had commanded £261m of capital investment, three quarters of that from the State. "I understand the point that it is not a bus, but more akin to a rail system," he said.
He has asked Department of Transport officials to discuss the future financing of the system with Tyne and Wear PTE officials. It appears likely that the Metro will in future be funded with Section 20 grants, in the same manner as British Rail services supported by PTEs, and not from local funds. It would not necessarily require large additional sums of money being spent in Tyne and Wear, but he justified the move by saying: "The Metro has been treated as a bus for fi nancing. To equate the position, it does seem right to look at the problem again."
He went on to tell Tynemouth Conservative MP Neville Trotter that there would be nothing in the Bill to stop public or private sector operators from cooperating in the provision of through ticketing. "It could be to their advantage to do so."
Mr Ridley's Junior Minister, David Mitchell, told the committee he had been "very impressed" by a recent visit to see the Metro; if the integrated service operated where people wished to go and not where planners directed them, then the PTE had nothing to fear from the Bill.
Most of the feeder bus routes appeared to be commercially viable, but there would be nothing to stop the PTE from seeking tenders to keep a "stray unviable" route running if it was judged to be socially necessary.