Not the end of the line for tram plan

OLDHAM’S dream of trams in the town centre could still become a reality — despite Greater Manchester’s dramatic rejection of congestion charging.

Councillor Howard Sykes has joined nine fellow council leaders to reunite and ask the Government to let projects go ahead anyway.

They had said previously that there was no “plan B” but at a meeting of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, Manchester leader Sir Richard Leese successfully moved that officials be asked to review the schemes and approach the Department for Transport to persuade them to come up with the money.

Apart from the Metrolink loop along King Street and Union Street, Oldham was also due to get new park-and-ride sites at Shaw and Mills Hill, extra train carriages, 20 per cent public transport discount for the low paid, smartcard ticketing, and yellow school buses.

Councillor Leese said: “We have fully developed business cases for all these schemes but now, no money for them.

“We need to look at each of them and assess how they able to deliver jobs and training and, in a short period of time, find some money in the new year from either the Government or locally.”

He was backed by Stockport leader Councillor Dave Goddard, a fierce opponent of the congestion charge who said: “Clearly there is a ‘Plan B’ after all!

“We should go back to the Government and say: ‘This is what we’ve got and this is what we need from you.”

Oldhamers voted by a massive 68,884 votes to 17,571 to reject plans which would have brought congestion charging in by 2013.

The conversion of the Oldham loop to Metrolink is unaffected and work will start next year.


Fury over pulled advert

GREATER Manchester’s councils will be demanding compensation from ITV after the channel took a £230,000 advert about the congestion charge referendum off the air.

And they will also complain to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham about the system which led OFCOM to rule that the advert, featuring former BBC presenter Martin Henfield, had been politically biased in favour of a ‘yes’ vote.

ITV pulled the commercial on November 13 with 10 days of the campaign still to go.

OFCOM later ruled that the time allocated in the advert to the consequences of the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ outcomes of the poll was uneven.