Aldridge Train Station

Debate between Wendy Morton and Clive Jones

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Morton]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. New trains stations must have disabled-friendly access, and also access for those who might have a pram, a pushchair or bags that are hard to carry up the stairs. That is really important. I am conscious that across the rail network, as the Minister will be aware, we have a lot of older train stations and heritage buildings. I know there is a programme to bring those up to speed. Perhaps she will say a little more about that.

I am passionate about a train station for Aldridge because I want to make sure that my constituents have opportunities to go into Walsall, Birmingham and beyond. I want young people to have the opportunity to get the train to go to study, to university, and of course to access employment—so, yes, I am ambitious for Aldridge. When Andy Street was the mayor, part of his ambition was to bring a train station back to Aldridge. In fact, I remember the day he launched the plan and it almost looked like a smaller version of the London Underground map with all the different lines linking together and taking passengers into New Street. Such maps probably get the Department for Transport thinking about a mass transit system and the ability to move people around an area.

A city region such as the West Midlands combined authority needs an integrated transport plan. In Aldridge we have the train line. All we need is a station and then we will be part of that integrated plan. Throughout the intervening period since 2017 a huge amount of work was undertaken by the West Midlands combined authority and Transport for West Midlands. The gamechanger came in February 2021, when Andy Street, on behalf of the combined authority, purchased land from the NHS for car parking. That was a clear demonstration of intent to reopen a station in Aldridge.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

Aldridge station is projected to have 40 new car parking spaces, but Twyford station in my constituency is having some resurfacing and relining that will see the number of spots decline. That is despite half a million people now using the station, mainly because of the Elizabeth line, leading to a nightmare for commuters in my constituency. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the Minister should bring Network Rail, Transport for London, Great Western Railway, and the Department together to find a solution that delivers more car park spaces for stations such as Twyford?

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. As train users, we all know that the availability of car parking is important, and it is disappointing when a car park is upgraded or resurfaced and the upshot is fewer spaces rather than more. For Aldridge station, the purchase of the land is critical as part of the plans, but I am conscious that that will need to go through planning and so on. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. Let us hope that the Minister might have heard his comments, and if she does not respond in this debate, perhaps she will respond to him another time.

Let us return to Aldridge station and the journey to where we are today. By June 2022, the strategic outline business case for the scheme was assessed, and given ministerial approval by the Department for Transport. Further funding was provided from the Restoring Your Railway programme. The outline business case demonstrated that the proposal to reopen a station in Aldridge presented the potential to improve connectivity for the residents of Aldridge, and reduce existing congestion by providing a more convenient public transport route, with greater access to job opportunities. Demand modelling for the proposed station shows the potential for 237,000 passenger journeys per year. That would help to reduce pressure at existing stations nearby, most notably at Blake Street and Four Oaks in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who is not here today, as well as at Tame Bridge in the West Bromwich constituency.

On 20 February this year, the green light for the project was given, and the budget of £30 million was secured from the Government. Transport for West Midlands and the West Midlands Rail Executive were working with Network Rail to get the station built and open, with a project end date of 2027. Imagine how excited we all were when we heard the news. For the avoidance of doubt, it was stated on the West Midlands combined authority website that the budget for Aldridge station was secured. Aldridge station would initially offer a half hourly service to Walsall town centre, where passengers would be offered an easy interchange with services to Birmingham, as well as the opportunity to connect to wider regional and national services. In addition, there were active discussions for further opportunities to improve and increase services at Aldridge. Those included the possibility that if the open access request was granted by DFT Ministers for services between Euston and Wrexham, the Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands railway could provide services through Aldridge directly to London five times a day. What a game changer that would be for my constituents.

It therefore came as a big surprise to me and my constituents when, no sooner was the newly elected mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, in place, than he announced in July a review into the future of Aldridge station. Not only that, but having said that he would look into all transport projects, he then singled out only three projects to be reviewed. Those included, of course, our proposed station in Aldridge. The question is: why? Then, having secured the £30 million of funding through the CRSTS, it came as a further shock to learn that, as an outcome of its review, Arup, the independent assessor, was under the misapprehension that there was a budget of only some £3.6 million, and therefore it seemed to believe that it was not a fully funded project. That is of course wrong, but that is the narrative that the mayor now wants people to believe, somehow conjuring up an illusion that the project has no funding and therefore could easily be pulled.

Mayor Parker knows that is completely wrong. In fact, he made an application to the Secretary of State for Transport to move over £26 million of that funding to other areas within the budget. I was informed by the former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), in a letter on 21 November that she had agreed to move the ringfence funding for the project on the advice of the mayor. Can the Minister confirm today when Mayor Parker made his application? Where has he sought to direct that funding to? I can only presume that it is to part of his wider transport budget, but which part, and where? My constituents are left wondering whether their funding is now being used to fund an unaffordable bus nationalisation scheme that everyone told Mayor Parker, before the election, could not be delivered on the budget he had planned, which was only £25 million.

On that basis, call me cynical, but an additional £26 million from the Aldridge project would prove to be very handy for the elected mayor to push forward with his pet project. I am not anti-buses at all, but I am against money that was earmarked and ringfenced for Aldridge being moved somewhere else. That is why, given that the Secretary of State gave approval to vire this money, it is important that we fully understand where it has gone. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to tell me today, as the mayor is trying to have his cake and eat it. First, there was a review, and that review then became all about Aldridge station being deferred until future years. Now this week he is saying:

“What is pretty clear is the funding wasn’t in place but more importantly that project has not currently met the business case requirements that it would need for that investment to take place”.

To me and my constituents, this all sounds rather like the whole project is slowly being pulled into the sidings, awaiting derailment by the mayor. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister confirmed what intention Mayor Parker has signalled to the Department for Transport.

I simply cannot, and will not, accept the comments from the mayor on funding. I would like the Minister to confirm: first, this was a fully funded project through the CRSTS and the funding allocation was awarded to the West Midlands combined authority and Transport for West Midlands; secondly, it was also detailed on the West Midlands Rail Executive website; and thirdly, this was a political decision and a political choice by the elected mayor to change his political priorities to move that money, and he sought approval from the Secretary of State to do so. Once and for all, I believe that it is time to call out the elected mayor. My constituents and wider public transport users in the West Midlands deserve better, and it is time to admit that this was not his political inheritance, nor his predecessor’s, and it was not any failure of the previous Government to fund a new station in Aldridge. It is his decision, and his alone, to deny the people of Aldridge their funding for their new station.

Turning to the so-called review, I would like to ask the Minister some questions—sorry about all my questions today. When did the former Secretary of State give her approval to move the money? I am concerned that the basis of the Arup review was seriously flawed, as the independent adviser to the mayor was under the impression either that approval to move the money had been given, or that the project had only a fraction of the budget, when the opposite was true. The residents of Aldridge deserve to be treated with respect, fairly and equitably, yet the manner in which the new mayor has handled the whole matter does a disservice to politics. Now we find that the mayor, having created his own hole, continues to dig himself in by repeating in his statements that the project was not funded and that the case for a station in Aldridge was not properly made, which is simply not the case.

The new Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander), said just yesterday that better rail services

“put the needs of local people first”.

I could not agree with her more. Ensuring that transport services are joined up, meet local needs and drive economic growth is exactly what Aldridge station is all about. It is time that the mayor apologised to the people of Aldridge for the whole review. I hope that the Minister will clear up the facts for my constituents today—that she will confirm that the project was fully funded and that by one means or another, the people of Aldridge have been seriously shortchanged, and the mayor has put their proposed new station at risk.

I will conclude by repeating that the residents of Aldridge deserve better than the treatment they have been given, and it is incumbent on the Minister today to be clear with all of them about why the Government have backed the decision. She needs to give them, and me, the answers to those very basic questions. Aldridge deserves its train station, and it expects its train station.