Tag: transport

David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

                                                                                                          

Updated: 11:25 24/11/14 Declaration of interest: In February 1997 the author of this piece was an employee of John Moores University for a week on work experience.

The papers for last Friday morning’s public meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority can be found on Knowsley Council’s website.

If you wish to watch what happened at the meeting you can do so below filmed by myself. If you want to watch me filming the meeting you can do so thanks to Knowsley Council. Also filming was somebody from Liverpool John Moores University Journalism. I think three people filming the same meeting is a record so far (considering that before August 2014 all requests to film Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meetings were refused).

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority public meeting 21st November 2014

However, what actually happened? A good chunk of the meeting (around half) was a twenty-five minutes presentation (followed by questions and answers) by Halton Borough Council’s Chief Executive David Parr (pictured below) on the Mersey Gateway bridge across the River Mersey being built in Halton near to the Silver Jubilee Bridge (or Runcorn Bridge).

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 item 5 Mersey Gateway Progress Update L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council

Agreement was also reached to amend the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s constitution. Last month on the 15th October 2014 West Lancashire Council decided to join the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as an Associate Member.

However to join, first the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority had to amend its constitution. Now that’s been done, a memorandum of understanding will be sent to West Lancashire Council which will need to be signed by them. However it seems likely that by the time the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority next meets that there will be someone there representing West Lancashire Council.

The area covered by West Lancashire has a population of 111,314 (2013 estimate), which is about a third of the Wirral. Its current political composition is 26 Labour councillors and 27 Conservative councillors. It was (until recently) evenly split at 27:27 but there is now (at the time of writing) a by-election going on in Skelmersdale North due to the recent death of a Labour councillor. The results of the by-election will be known by December 12th 2014.

The rest of the meeting was largely routine. However I welcome both hearing the result of the Skelmersdale North by-election and seeing who West Lancashire Council send to the next public meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. Pictures of its Leader and Deputy Leader can be viewed on this blog which covers the West Lancashire area.

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3 Organisations will jointly sign “Memorandum of Understanding” with Peel for transport planning on Wirral Waters project

3 Organisations will jointly sign “Memorandum of Understanding” with Peel for transport planning on Wirral Waters project A report on Merseytravel’s General Purposes Committee meeting of the 5th September 2013

3 Organisations will jointly sign “Memorandum of Understanding” with Peel for transport planning on Wirral Waters project

                                                                           

Councillors on Merseytravel’s General Purposes Committee today agreed to Merseytravel’s Chief Executive David Brown signing a “Memorandum of Understanding” with Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited about transport planning for the Wirral Waters project.

The Memorandum of Understanding will (subject to future approval) be signed by Wirral Council and the Highways Agency too. The agreement is for twenty-five years and is set to be reviewed annually by the Transport Steering Group. It covers the areas of any necessary public transport improvements, monitoring the effect of Wirral Waters related traffic on the local road network as well as the effect of construction traffic. Wirral Council will be leading the Transport Steering Group as it’s the local Planning Authority for the Wirral Waters scheme.

Chair of Merseytravel Cllr Liam Robinson (Labour) said, “Thanks for that Jeff, can I just say I’m absolutely delighted we’ve had this report brought through, because I think I would echo everyone in this chamber by saying that Wirral Waters is one of the most exciting proposed developments, not just in our part of the world but the whole of the country, dare I say Europe and I know from Merseytravel’s perspective we are all fully committed to provide the very best sustainable transport option for what is going to be hopefully a very, very exciting and prosperous development for the City Region. So the fact that we’ve got this report before this before we’ve signed the memorandum of understanding that gives us an opportunity to look at all of those options that are out there to provide the very transport solution for Wirral Waters which is welcomed from the development of this organisation. So that’s just really just what I wanted to say, so if anyone wants to add to that at all? Les?

Cllr Les Rowlands (Conservative spokesperson) said, “I just want to reiterate those great words. It is a very, very important project, I know it’s over a long period of time but we need to be getting in at the very early stages which is why as you know I’m very interested in what is going on there because I think we need to be starting to think about the memorandum at a very early stage to get the document in place, I very much welcome this report”.

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Cabinet (Wirral Council) 18th February 2013 Budget Meeting

Video of Wirral Council’s Labour Cabinet meeting of the 18th February 2013 to discuss their Budget recommendations to the Council meeting of the 5th March 2013

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Above is video of the well attended Cabinet meeting of 18th February 2013 which discussed the Labour Budget recommendation to Council (which will meet on the 5th March). The agenda, reports, draft minutes etc can be found by following the link.

It was another well attended meeting in the Civic Hall, prior to it was a march and protest outside the Town Hall.

Every agenda item (apart from declarations of interest and minutes) was a recommendation to Council on the 5th March, as the Labour Group could change their mind between now and then on their budget, I’ll save commenting in detail on Labour’s Budget until after the Budget Council meeting on the 5th March.