MPs reveal unpalatable truth about New Street Gateway

By Paul Dale on Jul 21, 08 10:58 AM in

One certain way to send Birmingham City Council incandescent with rage is to question the value of the New Street Gateway project.
When the Commons Transport Select Committee had the temerity to point out that the £600 million city centre scheme is little more than a very expensive sticking plaster designed to plug a gaping wound and that Birmingham will require a new, larger station sometime in the next 20 to 30 years, the reaction was ballistic.
While the MPs didn't mention the dread words Grand Central Station, their suggestion that the Government ought to start looking now for an "alternative solution" to New Street can mean only one thing - dusting off controversial plans to build a major main line station at Eastside.

This is something that the council and its Gateway partners, Network Rail and Advantage West Midlands, have tried not to talk about, fearing that the merest suggestion of Grand Central would kill the Gateway project stone dead.
Just to make sure that the idea was going nowhere, the council sold the former Parcelforce site at Digbeth, where Grand Central would have been built. That is not to say of course that further land could not be found in the Eastside vicinity, if the political will was there.
Paul Tilsley, the council deputy leader, got it into his head that the select committee's reservations about the New Street makeover, which it described as cosmetic and unlikely to be adequate to deal with an expanding rail service, might persuade the Government to axe funding.
Tilsley fumed: "If the Government start prevaricating over the development of New Street it will completely crock the whole rail network, as it is at the cross-roads of the West Coast Main Line and Cross Country routes."
He went on to demand urgent discussions with Liam Byrne, the West Midlands Minister.
But Coun Tilsley has over-reacted.
Firstly, the Government has approved more than £400 million towards New Street Gateway and the only thing that can now stop the project from going ahead as planned is a lack of private sector investment required to close the £200 million funding gap.
Secondly, the select committee, which has no powers to force Ministers to do anything, was merely pointing out a fact about New Street Gateway which, while it may be inconvenient to the council, has been in the public domain for years - that the new-look station will be able to cope with many more passengers, but it will not be able to handle more trains.
Network Rail continues to squirm, but a little over a year ago the organisation admitted that a new station at Eastside would have to be built at some time in the future. A spokesman said in March 2006: "We have enough capacity at New Street until 2046 but we have got to look at longer term demands on the track. An argument has developed that it has got to be New Street or Grand Central. As far as we are concerned we have got to do both."
That position appears to have been refined, or you might even conclude that a u-turn has been performed, with Network Rail insisting in reply to the select committee that enabling New Street to "take in more people" is the biggest problem facing the station. Is it? Try telling that to customers stuck in overcrowded trains waiting to make their way through the bottleneck approaches either side of New Street.
Now, according to Network Rail, is far too early to say whether Birmingham will need an additional station in 30 years time.
It is of course possible for Birmingham to struggle on with New Street for another 50 or 60 years, but without substantial expansion including additional platforms and tracks it will not come anywhere near meeting demand for rail travel. Customers will have their Gateway airport-style concourses to while away the hours in coffee bars and shops, but mayhem on the platforms below will never be far away.

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7 Comments

Jo Ind said:

I think the observation that the Gateway project is "cosmetic" is a strong reason for going ahead with it.

July 21, 2008 2:16 PM

H. T. Harvey said:

At last some clear thinking common sense rather than the satisfaction of the monetary aspirations of property developers be they City Council, Network Rail or the Private sector.
The Gateway project will cost £600 million and do nothing for the rail passenger except make him a cptive of the retailers who will also benefit from the development.

Great Central is by far the better scheme, better for the ratepayer, better for the rail passenger, better for the city better for the region, better for the rail network, better overall.
The £600million could fund the first stage of Great Central which would probably provide more long term benefits with less short term hassle for passengers and business than the silly Gateway Project.

Come on Birmingham show these second rate small time thinkers we want a transport hub/business centre fit for the future not one that patches up and perpetuates the mistakes of the past.

July 22, 2008 1:30 AM

Paul Groves said:

A councillor over-reacting and getting on his soap-box? How strange.

The MPs have confirmed what many - particularly those of us who use New Street regularly - knew about the Gateway Project. It is £600m to paper over the cracks and add a bit of glass and chrome. The committee's criticism will not alter the plans, but it does muddy the waters a little.

By my count that is now two major regeneration projects - New Street and the Central Library farce - in a matter of weeks which BCC has been trumpeting loudly but which have had the gloss taken off them. Once is unfortunate, twice is a bit more than carelessness.

There's still far too much talk and not enough action.

July 22, 2008 8:33 AM

blob boy said:

I agree with Mr Groves. Why is Birmingham such a basket case when it comes to sorting out transport? They've been wittering on for years about a metro and nothing happens. They say the can't do an underground because it's too expensive. Nothing seems to be happening ont he metro. The buses are confusing. And now the great show piece project of New Street gets slammed.
It all smacks of poor leadership and lack of imagination

July 22, 2008 12:13 PM

Martin Mullaney said:

I have uploaded two documents relating to the Gateway project:
The Executive Report on the project:
http://www.martinmullaney.co.uk/images-transport/gateway.pdf
This contains the logical thinking behind the new New Street station. A full set of plans and 3D projections

The Business case on the project:
http://www.martinmullaney.co.uk/images-transport/gateway-businesscase.pdf

I hope these documents lead to a more informed debate in the pages of the Birmingham Post.

Can I sort out a number of myths about Gateway and Grand Central:

1)Myth 1 – Grand Central would sort out all of Birmingham’s rail capacity problems at only £1billion.
Wrong. The latest projected cost of Grand Central is £3billion. The original cost of £1billion only covered the cost of building the station. There are huge engineering and logistal problems associated with the building of Grand Central. It would involve flattening half of the historic parts of northern Digbeth. The whole road system in the immediate area would have to be redesigned to cope with the flow of traffic – both private and public transport – to and from the station.

After building Grand Central with its umpteen platforms, it would still face the same bottlenecks that New Station faces – namely the limited width of the tunnel underneath the Bull Ring; the lack of capacity at Proof House junction and most importantly the lack of capacity within the West Coast Main Line.

The Grand Central proposal does not deal with the urban design issues of the present New Station and the shopping centre aboveit which destroys the natural flow of pedestrains between Hurst Street and Corporation Street. Indeed, the design of present New Street station is holding back investment in Station Street and the southern end of Hill Street. The Gateway project overcomes these design problems.

2)Myth 2 – The Gateway project is JUST a cosmetic job for the Pallisades shopping centre.
Wrong. The Gateway project is a major restructing of the ground floor level (the concourse) and the railway platforms of New Street. Yes, there will be benefits to the Pallisades shopping centre, insomuch that the entire centre of the Pallisades will be removed and opened up to nature light. The Pallisades is a dark dingy 1960’s shopping centre. The Gateway project will bring natural light into the Pallisades and put it on a par with the Bull Ring centre.

The Gateway project will for the first time in 50years make New Street station a stand alone building. Pedestrians will be able to walk around the outside of the building. This will create new pedestrain flows between Stephenson Street and the Bull Ring. A new pedestrain route from Stephenson Street to Station Street will make the walk from Hurst Street to Corporation Street pleasant – no need to walk up urine stained concrete stairs or deserted Pallisade shopping centre. This in turn will open up investment into Station Street and the southern end of Hill Steet.

3)Myth 3 – The Gateway project will not increase the capacity of New Street station
Wrong. The Gateway project will double the capacity of New Street station. At the moment, New Station is restricted by the number of passengers it can handle. This in turn is restricting the number of trains and train carriages it can handle at peak times. The Gateway project by redesigning the platform layout, increases the number of trains that can come into the station at peak times. The new New Station will be able to handle predicted passenger increases up till 2035.

For capacity issues after 2035, we will need to consider increased usage of Moor Street station and Snow Hill station. This can be achieved by the following:
a)Creating two Camp Hill railway chords – north-west corner and south-west corner. This will enable train services to be diverted from New Street into Moor Street
b)Converting the Midland Metro route to heavy rail. This will allow train services on the West Coast Main line to be divert off at Wolverhampton
c)Construction of addition platforms immediately to the north of Moor Street OR on the site of the former cattle market at Bordesley Station - the railway viaduct is wide enough to handle a number of platforms

4)Myth 4 – The Gateway will not increase capacity, since it does not add any new platforms or tracks.
Wrong – The Gateway increases the utilization and efficency of the present platforms, so as to allow more trains to use the station. The station however, will still be limited by the capacity of the tunnel underneath the Bull Ring and Proof House junction.

July 22, 2008 10:40 PM

barnardhobbit said:

The building of a new Grand Central Station is the best plan in my mind to bring Birmingham into the new Railway Age but
BCC seems to have dismissed this as they want more new Flats, Hotels and shops everywhere

That is not what Birmingham needs neither does it need a hole in the head

New Street would never be fit for purpose
as the hub of the railway system unless
new tunnels were built and the Proof House Junction bottleneck eliminated

The route going south to Coventry should be made four track as should the lines going south on the old Great Western Route

Two of those lines could be built for high speed operation

The current Gateway Project is not about building a Central England Railway Hub and station fit for the next hundred years
it's all about building another shopping mall for the next twenty years when no doubt they will want to knock it all down again

The main problems at New Street is the
Proof House Junction bottleneck that causes a queue to build up for several miles down the tracks where you can wait for 15 minutes or more

The schedule is so tight at busy times NO more trains can be added to the timetable

That equals Train Gridlock for the next twenty years

Lets have an independent review of both solutions before Birmingham again becomes
a laughing stock

July 23, 2008 4:49 PM

dp said:

Can anyone tell me if the prime movers behind the development of Spaghetti Junction were beset by the same sort of muddled thinking that affects upgrading Birmingham's passenger rail solutions? If so, what tactic did they use to ensure the thing was built to their vision?

PS: I'm still getting the 'text entered was wrong' message when I try to submit a comment. I think the Captcha system is broken.

August 7, 2008 11:05 PM