THE BIRMINGHAM POST: Signal at Red

It was good to hear last week that the Government was putting pounds 400 million into one of the busiest rail stations in the country. A rail station which is crucial to the UK economy and is a hub for connecting large parts of the country.

Does this decision signal a transformation in Government thinking? Have Ministers finally realised that investing in large transport hubs helps to increase the amounts of funding available for the country by increasing economic activity and GDP?

Given that the station concerned was Kings Cross in London, that appears unlikely.

Yet again the Government throws cash at a London project which it hopes will add to its ambitions at the 2012 Olympics.

No one is begrudging Kings Cross a penny. But one would hope that the Government could widen its horizons and recognise that spiralling costs of projects like the Olympics could be met more easily if the true economic potential of the country was being reached.

That can only happen when people, goods and services can move freely from one end of the country to the other.

Under current plans being tabled by the Government for when the new rail franchises are handed out later this year, that is not going to happen.

The Department for Transport’s new plan to increase capacity involves commuters disembarking at Birmingham New Street and then boarding a new train to their onward destination.

It does not take a genius to understand that this plan won’t work in the run-down excuse for a transport hub that New Street currently resembles.

These concerns are raised today by the Passenger Focus rail watchdog, and by the Tories at their conference last year.

It seems however that the Government is still stuck in the sidings as far as lateral thinking and New Street Station is concerned.

(c) 2007 Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.