On Friday, Adrian Goldberg’s phone-in on West Midlands Radio focused on the issue of the short but quite expensive Metro extension from Snow Hill to New Street which will cost in total £128m – to save a 5-10 minute walk.
Centro refused to be interviewed saying the issue is political.
Phil Jones, whose Longbridge based firm specialises in the formulation and design of sustainable transport solutions, here and abroad, reflected on the proposal [1.48mins -1.54]. In a wide-ranging interview about connectivity with the suburbs and HS2 – and the relative success of the Manchester system – he said, in answer to Adrian’s question “Is it worth it?”:
“Well it’s more attractive over buses in terms of image”.
Robin Clarke of Tramscam phoned in [2.13mins -2.19] and put the case for increasingly worried bus-users, outlined here recently.
Like WM Radio, we hope to have a further update on Mr Clarke’s legal challenge, noting that he has recently won a concession on a disputed point from the Treasury solicitor.
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Our Birmingham 
“noting that he has recently won a concession on a disputed point from the Treasury solicitor.”
I should perhaps clarify that’s not my wording of the matter there. What happened was the Treasury solicitor proposed we agree to delay lodging our judicial review claim, at which we pointed out that the procedure rules explicitly forbid such an agreement to delay, whereupon the solicitor apologised for overlooking that particular rule. I’d have thought the whole point of being a solicitor is that you know such basic rules of doing what when. Make of that what you will!
The Treasury solicitor does meanwhile make a reasonable point that he needs time to consider whether the DfT should pull the plug on Centro anyway (without need for taking the matter to court). Fact is that Centro sent a falsely-rosied account to the DfT and the DfT may change their mind now we’ve pointed that out.
Thank you for the clarification.