Their Flagship is Sinking!

Article for Stockport Express - September 2008

Hidden amongst all the gloomy news about jobs under threat, homes repossessed and mortgages refused has been some bad local news as well - Labour's flagship Congestion Charge is sinking almost as quickly as the economy.

The glittering promises first made are tarnished and fading already. Back then it looked as though we would get a new bus station for our money. Now we know it is just half a bus station, with a lift to nowhere. Then they promised a fleet of new yellow school buses. Now we know they have allocated just one bus to Stockport. Then they dangled the prospect of better train and bus services to speed commuters on their way. Since then vital bus links to the Hospital, like the 317, have actually been cut back.

To add insult to injury, from December, when electric trains are taken off the Hazel Grove line, trains there will be shorter, with fewer seats. An already desperately overcrowded commuter service will need Japanese-style 'pushers-on' on the platforms to get passengers on board at all!

The train operators, Northern Rail, say they can't get the go-ahead from the Government to lease extra carriages for the route. You won't be surprised to hear that the very same Government announced with a big fanfare six months ago that they were paying for an extra 140 new ones. It's just that they haven't got round to letting anyone use them.

I have pointed out to Transport Minister Ruth Kelly that she is going a strange way about convincing Stockport residents that Labour has our best interests at heart when it comes to improving transport locally.

What about longer trains, not shorter ones? What about more trains? Buses that go to where people work and live? A tram spur from the Airport line to the centre of Stockport - with a proper tram/bus/rail interchange? The go-ahead for the rest of the A555 to lift the blight of congestion in Hazel Grove, not just in Manchester city centre?

Meanwhile, as one promise after another is shown up for what it is, supporters of the Congestion Charge are still claiming it will bring thousands of jobs (it turns out that is from the tram extensions - NC2S - 'not coming to Stockport'), bumper harvests and an end to climate change.

Very few of my constituents will get to use the additional services that Congestion Charges are planned to provide. But very many of us will be faced with a daily Congestion Charge to pay. We will all have a chance to vote on this in two months time - and I am quite clear which way my vote will go.

End