Mersey Gateway: a Textbook Case of Bad Policy Making

by Professor Alan Wenban-Smith

On October 19th, Professor Alan Wenban-Smith, one of the UK's leading transport planning experts, was one of the witnesses at a House of Commons Transport Select Committee hearing into 'Transport and the Economy' . Much of the discussion focused around 'transformational change' and political 'pet projects'.

On October 20th the Chancellor revealed the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review and announced governmental support for three North West road schemes which the North West Transport Roundtable has opposed: the Mersey Gateway, the Heysham-M6 Link Road and the A556 Knutsford-Bowdon 'Improvement'. Following this, Professor Wenban-Smith sent a letter to 'Local Transport Today' (LTT) which was published in its October 29-November 11 edition under the heading ' Mersey Gateway: a textbook case of bad policy making' and he also submitted a supplementary paper to the Select Committee in which he uses the Mersey Gateway case as an example of a 'pet project' which would provide poor value for money and anything but transformational change to the local area.

Here is the LTT letter, and the professor's original evidence and his supplementary evidence.

Dear Andrew Foster,

On 19 October I was a witness at a session of the Transport Select Committee Inquiry into Transport & the Economy. All sides (political and expert) seemed agreed that a decent system of appraisal is a vital bulwark against 'pet schemes' being peddled for political advantage (the Humber Bridge may have been mentioned). And while we may disagree about appraisal methods, all agreed that their testing at Public Inquiries is crucial safeguard.

How odd then that the very next day George Osborne announced that the Mersey Gateway Bridge (MGB) was one of a handful of schemes that would be funded. On the face of it a victory for regeneration in the North, but keen readers of LTT will be aware that MGB's claims to transformational economic impacts are contested. For example, the promoter's own numbers show that cumulative user benefits only start to outweigh cumulative tolls after 14 years. Until then the MGB represents a net transfer out of the local economy and into the pockets of the concessionaires - and after that, it's anyone's guess: the model ony goes to 15 years. So much for regeneration.

So here we have exactly the kind of decision everyone agreed to be wrong: a pet scheme decided on a mistaken premise, without waiting for the report of the Public Inquiry that was supposed to test the case.

Yours,

Professor Alan Wenban-Smith
Urban & Regional Policy
48 St Agnes Road, Birmingham B13 9PN
tel 0121 442 2341; fax 0121 247 4601
e-mail alanwenbansmith@pobox.com

PS copied to other witnesses present and Committee specialist