The shambles that is West Yorkshire mass transit continues with the departure of another top transport official at the region’s combined authority and “the Cabinet minister in charge of devolution” apparently joining in the row about whether it will be trams.
Three years after being appointed as West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s first executive director for transport “in a move to bolster the top team”, Simon Warburton is following mass transit director Mike Birch out the door. He wrote on LinkedIn:
… with a strong team in place to deliver on the Mayor’s vision for a modern transport system in the region, including mass transit and a franchised bus system, I have decided to move on to pursue the next stage in my career.
Meanwhile, the Yorkshire Post which has chronicled the different views of government ministers and West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin, quotes communities secretary Steve Reed as saying that “it is up to the people of Leeds” whether they want to spend regional funding on a tram system for West Yorkshire.
I’m not so sure. For a start, as Reed acknowledged, West Yorkshire is more than just Leeds, and the region’s mass transit scheme also includes adjacent Bradford.
Politics Home has published the full article by sister publication The House about the secret report on the West Yorkshire mass transit farce, setting out more clearly how mayor Tracy Brabin’s combined authority was working to a politicised agenda over the scheme’s timing and, in consequence, the scheme itself.
The House has obtained a copy of the 45-page “peer review” by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista), which it says sets out 19 separate risks relating to the project’s governance, assurance and planning,
It says a “key recurring theme” in the review is the extent to which Brabin’s West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) allowed the scheme to be shaped “around a political agenda rather than a recognised programmatic approach” and that it specifically refers to her manifesto pledge to get “spades in the ground by 2028”, which is the year that she intends to stand for a third term in office.
According to The House, the report says of the 2028 pledge:
This date has been driving the planning for WYMT [West Yorkshire Mass Transit] and while it is vitally important to drive pace into delivery and also challenge current ways of thinking, there are elements of Managing Public Money, that government needs to adhere to.
The article quotes a “source who has been following the project closely”:
Last week the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) responded to the leaking of the secret “peer review” of its plan for trams by claiming the support of the (now defunct) National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) – but what the NIC actually said does not justify this claim.
A quick recap: The House magazine has obtained the review by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) into WYCA’s mass transit scheme, which was said both to criticise the authority for pursuing “unrealistic milestones” under a “political agenda” and to show buses to be better value for money than trams.
As I reported, in response the WYCA doubled down on mayor Tracy Brabin’s highly performative “spades in the ground by 2028” pledge. But I’ve also obtained its full statement, which both asserts the need for more devolution and invokes the support of the NIC over its insistence on the need for trams, rather than buses.
A spokesperson said:
Delivery of major infrastructure projects in the UK is too slow, and in the spirit of devolution we want to innovate to deliver mass transit more quickly.
NISTA’s predecessor body, the National Infrastructure Commission, set out clearly in 2023 that Leeds needs a tram.
The second bit is a reference to the Commission’s 2023 Second National Infrastructure Assessment, which does reference the case for trams in Leeds but in a far more cautious way:
The senior councillor who called out West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin over her “dishonest” presentation of the secret report into her mass transit plans has renewed his call for it to be published in full and criticised her for engaging in “spin over substance”.
The statement from Cllr Alan Lamb, leader of the Conservative group on the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), followed the leaking of the report to The House magazine, although he did not mention it directly.
Lamb said:
I still cannot disclose the contents of the Independent Peer Review. But I can say it made material recommendations about governance, the business case and other key matters. We know those findings directly preceded the Government’s decision to delay the programme. That matters because residents were told publicly – with great confidence – that spades would be in the ground in 2028. If there is a gap between public certainty and private evidence, that gap must be addressed openly.
The “peer review” by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority is reported to have criticised Brabin for focusing on an “unrealistic milestone” of “spades in the ground” by 2028, which it warned could be followed by a significant and costly gap before “the start of actual work”.
Pro-building lobby group Britain Remade is making headlines with its “Give mayors the power to build” campaign, citing Leeds in particular as an example of where a lack of mayoral power is causing British cities to fall behind.
With West Yorkshire’s mass transit plans firmly in the news, Britain Remade is also running a Leeds Needs Trams campaign, but its latest pitch covers other cities, such as Bristol and Birmingham.
New analysis by Britain Remade has exposed the scale of the gap between England’s major cities and their European twins. As a result, the campaign group is calling on the Government to give England’s 14 directly elected mayors the powers they need to change this.
The data, drawn from tram, metro, and light rail systems across Europe, paints a damning picture: English city-regions twinned with well-connected European cities are being systematically left behind. Not because of a lack of ambition from local leaders, but because those leaders are forced to go cap in hand to Westminster for every penny and every planning permission for major infrastructure projects.
The lobby group doesn’t appear to have published the “new analysis”, other that what is in its (two) press releases, but it highlights clear disparities in the scale of mass transit systems in England and France and Germany.
The secret report on West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s plans for a mass transit system has inevitably been leaked and is said to show both that the authority was working to “unrealistic milestones” and that the benefits:cost ratio for a bus system is “significantly better” than for the trams that it wants.
The House magazine has obtained the “peer review” by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, which put back the project’s timelines from the early to the late 2030s. PoliticsHome reports:
Tracy Brabin’s attempts to start construction on a Leeds tram network before her next re-election campaign were blocked after a confidential Whitehall review concluded this deadline carried a high risk of wasted taxpayers’ cash.
The Labour mayor of West Yorkshire has repeatedly promised to get “spades in the ground” by 2028.
The report is also said to have warned that the was being driven by a “political agenda rather than a recognised programmatic approach”.
It added that “options appraisal for investment, robust project planning and risk management are critical ingredients for successful delivery and should not be compromised for unrealistic milestones”.
There was a risk of “political embarrassment”, it cautioned, “if there was a large disconnect between a lauded ‘spades in the ground’ date and the start of actual work,” and it said that money could be wasted: “The risk of nugatory spend is high.”
Unsurprisingly, the review also found that not enough work had been done to prove why the scheme needed trams rather than buses, something that I have written about extensively.
The paper’s authors were “concerned” about the West Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority’s (WYCA) “lack of unbiased thinking” on this question, adding: “There is a need to build the case for trams which has not been completed.
“This is particularly important because the likely cost of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) mode is significantly less than for trams and the BRT benefits:cost ratio is significantly better.”
The WYCA has responded to the revelation by again trying to gaslight the public as to the reality of when genuine, rather than performative, construction work will take place and when the scheme will actually be delivered. A spokesperson said:
Beginning preparatory construction works by 2028 has been an ambition for the combined authority for some time because the people of West Yorkshire have waited long enough for this investment…
The latest government document to reference plans for a West Yorkshire mass transit system shows ministers’ ability to offer little more than warm words – and hype – including an empty promise to deliver more than “warm words”.
The north of England has waited far too long for a government that matches warm words with concerted ambition…
It continues:
but by working in lockstep with northern Mayors, businesses, and communities , we can see the North define its own future.
The problem is that central government has recently waded into the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s plans for mass transit in an utterly Stalinist way that includes putting the scheme back by years and telling the authority that it has to prove that it cannot just be a few better buses.
“Working in lockstep” with northern mayors to allow the North to define its own future is a bit like the Soviet Union invading Czechoslovakia to help it define its own future.
West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin has cast further doubt over expectations that the region’s mass transit plan will deliver trams, admitting that she is in a battle to prove to the Department for Transport that “it can’t be a bus”.
Brabin signalled the size of the battle by again publicly citing the support of chancellor and Leeds MP Rachel Reeves:
It’s going to be a tram And as the chancellor of the exchequer said on camera, when she was interviewed about what Mass transit was going to be, she said, And Tracy, I said it was going to be a tram.
However, we have to make the case, and that is fine. We are now in a process where we have to prove it can’t be a bus, and that’s fine. We’ll do that, because it will be a tram.
At times Brabin seemed unsure whether she and Reeves were on the same side as Alexander or aiming for different outcomes, following the “resequencing” of the scheme on the back of a report from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) last year:
Heidi Alexander has cast new doubts over whether West Yorkshire’s plans for “mass transit” will ever amount to anything more than “a few better buses”, in what appears to be an ongoing battle between her department on one side and chancellor Rachel Reeves and mayor Tracy Brabin on the other.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has refused to guarantee that the planned West Yorkshire mass transit system will include a tram network.
It adds:
It comes after The Yorkshire Post revealed last year that civil servants could overrule Ms Brabin and turn the mass transit system into a bus network, with West Yorkshire Combined Authority asked to set out an alternative business case for buses. The Department for Transport is the ultimate body which will sign off the plans for the scheme.
It also comes after the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), led by Brabin, refused to disclose a “peer review” of the scheme by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) on the grounds that it would damage public confidence in the scheme.
The Yorkshire Post article shows Alexander not only repeatedly refusing to commit to the trams that Brabin and Leeds MP Reeves have been pushing for but also refusing to back Reeves’ insistence that “mass transit does not mean a few better buses”:
Following the admission that disclosure of a “peer review” of West Yorkshire’s mass transit plans would damage public confidence in them, central and regional government continue to act in a way that suggests the plans really are “in peril” and that the contribution of trams to the scheme may be limited.
The latest desperate looking move is a press release from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA):
Businesses, investors and political leaders have united to reaffirm their backing for West Yorkshire’s Mass Transit plans following a visit to the region from the Rail Minister.
[…]
Leeds United Football Club is the latest high-profile organisation to throw its weight behind Mass Transit, alongside the National Wealth Fund and leading developer Muse.
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