Tyne & Wear
In the second of a two-part series, GRAEME PICKERING looks at the case for infrastructure improvements to - and the expansion of - the Tyne & Wear Metro system
The second part of a two-part series on the Tyne & Wear Metro looks at the case for infrastructure improvement.
When the Tyne & Wear Metro opened on August 11 1980 it was heralded as revolutionary. It formed part of a plan which promised to deliver “the most efficient transport system in the country”.
The concept was an integrated network where the Metro would bring passengers into and out of central urban areas and link with bus routes. It was an alternative to congested roads and a replacement for suburban heavy rail services, the routes of which were modified to take Metro services into the very centres of Newcastle and Gateshead. To quote a promotional film from the time, the objective was “to bring Metro where it was needed”.
“We couldn’t manage without it today,” observes Martin Gannon, the Leader of
Gateshead Council and Chairman of the North East Joint Transport Committee (NEJTC), which oversees the work of Nexus, the area’s passenger transport executive and operator of the Metro. But he concedes: “Nobody’s going to argue that it’s been perfect.”
A contract worth around £ 700 million was confirmed in January and signed in February with the Swiss manufacturer Stadler to build 42 new five-car trains to replace the existing fleet, which has operated since the system opened ( RAIL 899).
It also includes a 35-year agreement for the manufacturer to maintain the new trains and to rebuild the Metro’s maintenance facilities at South Gosforth. Gannon describes the deal (for which £ 337m of Government funding was secured in 2017 towards the purchase of the trains) as “monumental”, but says this is just the first step in re-gearing the system for today’s and future needs.
“It was envisaged in the 1960s, built in the 1970s and opened in the 1980s,” he explains.
“We have Metro stations in Gateshead with no car parks. The pioneers that dreamt the idea up were working on an economy of the 1960s and 1970s when there was far less car ownership. We need to make the investment in the park-and-ride facilities and extending the network. That’s where the problem’s been - the lack of continued growth and investment in the network rather than there being a problem with the network in the first place. It’s a 1960s network dealing with the problems of the 21st century.”
NEJTC had been awaiting the outcome of a £ 377m bid to the Government’s Transforming Cities fund to support a £448m transport programme. However, the confirmation of £198m from the Chancellor in March’s Budget has left it with a challenge of having to prioritise schemes.
The Department for Transport had already committed £1.5m to advancing progress on the project to restore heavy rail passenger services on the Benton North Junction-Ashington route, known as the Northumberland Line (confirmed in January), which had formed one of two rail elements of the bid.
The second, which will benefit from £ 95m of the Transforming Cities cash, is unlocking capacity on the Metro between Gateshead and South Shields in a project known as ‘Metro
Flow’, by dualling three sections of the route which are currently single-track. A further four new trains will also be ordered.
The remainder of the investment will go towards other aspects of the transport programme. Originally it aspired to upgrade Sunderland station on the Durham Coast
Line (which is served by both national rail and Metro), as well as improving access to Durham and Newcastle Central stations and improved bus and Metro park and ride sites.
Gannon continues: “The priority for us were issues in the link between South Tyneside and Gateshead. This means increasing the capacity and the reliability of the network beyond Pelaw and into South Tyneside, improving park and ride facilities, improving urban pedestrian ways and cycle ways, and working with our communities to get modal change in the way in which people get to work or move around.”
While the Metro is in need of investment to better serve the region, it hasn’t stood still.
Metro was envisaged in the 1960s, built in the 1970s and opened in the 1980s. It’s a 1960s network dealing with the problems of the 21st century.
Martin Gannon, Leader of Gateshead Council and Chairman of the North East Joint Transport Committee
The first parts of the system (the North Tyneside Loop and routes westward through the Newcastle suburbs to Bank Foot and eastwards from Gateshead to South Shields) which were completed in stages between August 1980 and March 1984, were followed in November 1991 by the £12m extension of the network from Bank Foot to Newcastle Airport.
In 2002, a scheme to bring the Metro to Wearside was completed. This involved electrifying (at 1,500V DC) and modifying the heavy rail Durham Coast route between Pelaw and Sunderland so that it could also be used by Metro trains and the rebuilding and re-opening of the former Sunderland-Durham railway line (closed to passengers in 1964) as far as South Hylton.
The system now handles more than 36 million passenger journeys each year, and Nexus claims each journey is worth £ 8.50 to the local economy. There’s also evidence to suggest the presence of the Metro has a significant impact on where people are choosing to live.
“What is important to them nine times out of ten is public transport and to be on a Metro route,” says Lauren Scott, the founder of a North Tyneside estate agency and President of the National Association of Estate Agents, Propertymark.
“That might not necessarily be for them - it might be for their children.
If they’re 15 or 16 years old they can get around themselves without having to rely on mum and dad.
“These people also use the Metro to go shopping in Newcastle. The cost for parking in Newcastle and the availability of spaces is ridiculous so it’s much easier to hop on a Metro and get straight into town. That convenience is huge. I don’t hear a lot of people saying: ‘I need to be on a bus route.’ It’s the Metro they want.”
Scott says that in the Whitley Bay area house prices can be around 30% higher in districts served by the Metro. And she believes that the opening in 2005 of Northumberland
Park station, in an area west of the town which continues to be expanded for housing and retail, has added to the attraction for buyers and developers.
“We naturally look for the easiest route from A to B and the Metro is very, very easy,” she says. “It’s a great selling tool for the builders. Take Northumberland Park as an example. They built the Metro station there and that area has had the most development in both retail and new-builds that I’ve seen anywhere on North Tyneside. The Metro was a huge pull for it, especially when they did the park-and-ride.”
Making alternative transport options more attractive is particularly important as New castle City Council prepares for significant steps to reduce pollution. A clean air zone will be introduced from 2021 with a charge being levied for high-emissions buses, lorries, taxis and vans entering central Newcastle. Although initially exempt,
The convenience of the Metro is huge. I don’t hear a lot of people saying: ‘I need to be on a bus route.’ It’s the Metro they want.
Lauren Scott, President of the National Association of Estate Agents, Propertymark
cars could be subject to fees from a later date.
In an attempt to reduce the number of vehicles entering the area and to reduce the cost of wear and tear, the road over the Tyne Bridge will be reduced to a single lane in each direction. It’s understood that the road deck of the Network Rail-owned and Grade 1-listed High Level Bridge may also be restricted to cyclists and pedestrians to reduce the impact of traffic on the structure. Road traffic has consisted of buses and taxis only since its refurbishment in 2008.
NEJTC Chairman Martin Gannon adds that climate change and air quality have to be addressed in local transport policies. “If we’re serious at all about it we’re going to have to do something about reducing emissions from transport,” he says. “Transport is going to become even more important and the need to find quality, clean, reliable, accessible means of public transport is going to be prioritised. The agenda is only going to move in one direction.”
And with this comes pressure to finally deliver these public transport benefits on a wider scale. With the ability to run on battery power as well as taking current from overhead lines, the new trains could make this ambition easier to achieve.
Initially, they will be able to operate for 45 minutes by drawing energy from their batteries, but as the technology advances it’s expected the range and capability will be greater. This is seen as a way to enable the Metro to serve more areas, mainly by using existing or former heavy rail routes which can be rebuilt without the cost or complication of having to electrify them.
New routes for the Metro could eventually include a link between Northumberland Park and Percy Main on the North Tyneside Loop, which would also offer a connection to the Northumberland Line, as well as providing a direct link between growing housing developments and the Cobalt Business Park and Silverlink Shopping Park further south. Similarly, on Wearside, there are aspirations for a route which would diverge from the South Hylton line west of Sunderland city centre to serve a large area of housing and a business park in the suburb of Doxford.
On Tyneside, the prospect of the Metro serving western areas of Newcastle and Gateshead hasn’t been discounted, although nearby development work and the cost of creating a tunnel has pretty much ruled out the original intention of achieving this by extending from St James Metro station.
Among the other options are the construction of a new bridge over the River Tyne to link the route with the Metrocentre and potential sharing of a short section of the Tyne Valley line and its connecting freight spur to run a route south serving Team Valley and a park and ride station next to the A1. The 2016 Metro & Local Rail Strategy produced by Nexus and the North East Combined Authority says this could theoretically offer the opportunity to operate local rail services, segregated from the East Coast Main Line as far south as Birtley and Chester-le-Street.
The town of Washington, which has a population of more than 67,000, could also be served by the Metro as part of plans to reopen the former Leamside Line between Pelaw and the ECML at Tursdale in County Durham. Mothballed in 1991, it is still owned by Network Rail. The alignment is intact, although level crossings have been removed and a now heavily overgrown section of track between Pelaw and Wardley (which continued to be used for several years after the rest of the route) is one of the few reminders of a functioning railway line.
If it were to be reopened in its entirety, the line could once again serve as an additional route for passenger and freight traffic to relieve pressure on the ECML. From a
Metro perspective, the network could be expanded south along the line from Pelaw via Washington to join an extension of the route from South Hylton.
Ironically, one of the original proposals for connecting Sunderland to the Metro would have used this route, but it was ruled a “nonstarter” in 1993 due to its estimated cost of
£ 97m. Instead, with a more manageable predicted cost of £47m it was decided to proceed with sharing the Durham Coast line with British Rail and extending westwards as far as South Hylton. However, by the time the project was completed nine years later, it had cost £100m.
“I think it was a terrible error of judgment back then,” says Sunderland City Council Leader and ward councillor for Washington South Graeme Miller. “It was before my time as a politician in the region but it genuinely disenfranchised the west of Sunderland because there was no access to the Metro and there is obviously still no access to the Metro.”
Describing the benefits of the Sunderland extension as built, Miller acknowledges: “It clearly enables people to get from the city centre of Sunderland to the city centre of Newcastle through Gateshead, so that worked.”
But he points out: “Sunderland as a city is made up of Sunderland, Washington and Houghton and Hetton. It benefited the old town of Sunderland by improving the transport link within that area. It didn’t add anything to the transport needs or benefits to the residents of Washington, Houghton and Hetton.”
Miller says that in 1992 he and his family moved to a housing estate close to the Leamside line in the notion that they would soon be able to use the Metro, but the abandonment of the plans meant a continued dependence on cars. Almost 30 years later, he says the case for rectifying the situation is as strong as it has ever been.
“Now that Washington is the industrial heart and lungs of the city with Nissan here and with its supply chain based all around us there is a real strategic need for there to be a Metro link coming from Pelaw/Follingsby, from the Gateshead area into Washington to complete that work. Nissan is a nationally acknowledged strategic economic partner as is the IAMP site so we do need the Government to come forward with the money to enable that to be done promptly.”
Concerns in the 1990s weren’t solely about the cost of a Metro route via Washington, but also the number of residents who would use it.
Now that Washington is the industrial heart and lungs of the city with Nissan here and with its supply chain based all around us there is a real strategic need for there to be a Metro link from the Gateshead area into Washington.
Graeme Miller, Leader of Sunderland City Council and ward councillor for Washington South
In April 1994, Richard Arkell, then Programme Director for Regeneration at Sunderland
City Council told The Journal newspaper: “A feasibility study was undertaken but it was decided that there would not be enough patronage from Washington.”
While Washington has grown since then and homes have continued to be built on the eastern side of town within easy reach of the line, the town centre and much of its population lies in the area further west. In a community which was planned around major A-roads giving easy access north, south, east and west, Miller accepts that persuading people to travel across town or to parkand-ride rather than head directly to their destination by car may be difficult to achieve without some incentive.
“We must make the use of the Metro system cheaper,” he says. And he believes heavier transport subsidies should be put in place across the country for solutions such as the Metro to work to their full potential.
“We need the Government to be serious about this, about quality and affordability. With both in place, that will pretty much get everybody using it.”
Following the budget, Gannon said he was pleased to note that the area had been mentioned alongside city regions that could benefit from a new public transport fund. He’s clear that in the longer term there needs to be a commitment to help them expand rather than enhance the existing Metro network.
“Washington is a major centre of population not connected to the Metro system. Chesterle-Street and Durham are major population centres not connected to the Metro system,” says Gannon. “If we can increase the connectivity and reach of the Metro system out into those areas it ticks all the boxes in terms of economic development, growth, improving air quality, dealing with the issues of climate change and congestion, and improving the quality of urban living.”
Miller adds: “Why would you come to the north to build a business if you’re going to
struggle to get from your warehouse to your manufacturing plant or your workforce are going to struggle to get to work because the roads are swamped with traffic?”
He warns that if there is insufficient investment businesses will just stay in the Midlands and the south and economic disparity will continue to grow. “The Government has to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
During a parliamentary debate last month, Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris said he very much hoped plans for the Leamside Line would come to fruition. “We are completely committed to levelling-up the country and to levelling-up the economy,” the Minister told RAIL.
When asked about further investment in the Metro’s infrastructure, he replied: “I know they’ve got great plans and I believe the new trains can actually help them do that. I look forward to seeing future bids.”
Gannon is convinced that “an absolutely compelling case” can be made. “We can argue forever about what Governments should be investing in in terms of regional economic development but the two factors which come top of the pile every time are skills and transport. If you skill up a workforce, jobs flock to the skilled workforce and if you put down the transport infrastructure, jobs and businesses flock to the transport infrastructure.” R
Graeme Pickering is a self-employed journalist who writes on all aspects of railways and transport issues. A former
BBC journalist and ex-News Editor of ITV Tyne Tees, he has over 20 years’ experience covering major stories. Twitter: @PickGS