For Whom the Tunnel Tolls

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For Whom the Tunnel Tolls

Mersey Tunnel tolls have been decided annually by Merseytravel (Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority), however the Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority ceased to exist at the start of this month and was replaced by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (also known by its legal name which is the Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority). The existing Merseytravel representatives from Wirral Council (along with representatives from the other Merseyside Councils) sit on the Merseytravel Committee of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority with the addition of two representatives from Halton.

Wirral Council’s Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee discussed a motion about the Mersey Tunnel tolls, which had been referred to it by the Mayor at the Wirral Council meeting of the 10th March 2014. Prior to recent changes to Wirral Council’s constitution such policy motions were discussed and voted on by a meeting of all of Wirral’s councillors (of which there are sixty-six). The Regeneration and Environment Committee has only fifteen Wirral Council councillors on it.

The motion about the Mersey Tunnel tolls was proposed by Councillor Les Rowlands (a Conservative councillor for Heswall ward whose term of office ends this year and will probably be standing soon for reelection). Councillor Les Rowlands is also one of four Wirral Council representatives on Merseytravel (the others representing Wirral Council are Councillor Steve Foulkes, Councillor Ron Abbey and Councillor John Salter). The motion was seconded by Councillor Andrew Hodson (who is also a Conservative councillor in Heswall ward) and a copy is below.

(1) Council regrets the recent tunnel toll increases for all toll classes forced through by the Labour-led Integrated Transport Authority.

(2) Council notes that since the introduction of the 2004 Mersey Tunnels Act, sponsored by former Labour MP Claire Curtis-Thomas and supported by Labour Members throughout its passage through Parliament, Merseytravel has accrued over £40 million in surpluses which have been used on their pet transport schemes and vanity projects.

(3) Council also notes that Merseytravel have squandered large amounts of money as can be evidenced by the £70 million failed tram scheme colloquially known as ‘Line 1 to Nowhere’ and its extravagance in occupying a half empty building at No 1 Mann Island.

Therefore Council believes

(a) The consistent increases year on year is damaging Wirral’s economy putting further pressure on motorists and businesses.

(b) Council recognises such increases place a greater strain on tunnel users who have to travel to and from work placing an unfair tax burden on Wirral residents.

(c) Council recognises discount toll schemes/free crossings for local residents already exist in other parts of the country and while recognising that fast tag users benefit from a discount, Council believes that regular users should be rewarded with a local discount scheme over and above that afforded by use of the fast tag such as that announced for the Mersey Gateway Bridge of a “local user discount scheme” with up to 300 free journeys per year.

Council therefore requests the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive to write to the Chief Executive/Director General of Merseytravel requesting an urgent meeting to discuss: if and how the Mersey Tunnels can be reinstated back into the national road network and Tunnel Tolls abolished.

If that is not possible how a ‘local user discount scheme’ over and above that which already exists through the Fast Tag can be implemented to ease the burden on the hard pressed motorists of Wirral.

Video of the first twenty-five minutes of the meeting can be watched above.

The meeting started with Councillor Steve Foulkes asking for legal advice from the “Borough Solicitor” (who is Surjit Tour who wasn’t present but Colin Hughes was present to offer legal advice to committee members) on whether he should declare just a personal interest in the Mersey Tunnel tolls agenda item as a member of the Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority*.

Councillor Steve Foulkes also pointed out that Councillor Les Rowlands was also a member of Merseytravel and that he “did state he [Councillor Les Rowlands] could take part in the debate”** and asked for clarification over the nature of the interest.

* The Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority had in fact ceased to exist as it had been abolished eight days previously by s.6 of The Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority Order 2014. What Councillor Steve Foulkes probably meant instead was an interest arising as he is a member of the Merseytravel Committee of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

** Whether Councillor Les Rowlands took part isn’t a decision for Councillor Steve Foulkes to make. Councillor Les Rowlands isn’t part of the Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee but as the proposer of the motion Standing Order 7(6) applies which states “A member of the Council who has moved a motion which has been referred to any committee shall be given notice of the meeting at which it is to be considered. The member shall have the right to attend the meeting and an opportunity of explaining the motion.”

Colin Hughes who forgot to turn on his microphone when replying said, “Yes, I’d declare that if I was you I’d do that.” However Colin Hughes didn’t state whether it was a personal or prejudicial interest, just that Councillor Foulkes had to declare an interest.

The Chair asked if anyone was subject to a party whip (no one replied that they were). The Chair then said the next item was “minutes of the last meeting which was held on the 10th March”.*

*The Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee hadn’t met on the 10th March, only Cabinet and a meeting of full Council met on the 10th March.

The Chair said they would change the order slightly and have the second notice of motion (on the Mersey Tunnel Tolls) first. He then said (in relation to Cllr Les Rowlands), “I think I’m right, he was here but he’s not here now but Councillor Les Rowlands doesn’t wish to speak to that.” Other councillors drew Cllr Alan Brighouse’s attention to the fact that Councillor Les Rowlands was in fact sitting on the front row with cries of “He’s here” to which Councillor Alan Brighouse replied, “He’s here is he? I can’t see him!”.

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Are the cuts to Wirral Council’s budget really as bad as politicians have told us?

The information for these tables I’ve used from a Department for Communities and Local Government policy paper which has an explanatory note on how these figures are calculated. Spending power refers to the overall money available for to local councils combining how much they have from Council Tax, business rates and government grants.

Local Authority	2013-14 Spending Power (adjusted) (£ million)	2014-15 Spending Power including Efficiency Support Grant (£ million)	Change £ million	Change %
Knowsley	198.784	187.589	-11.194	-5.6%
Liverpool	571.351	540.223	-31.129	-5.4%
Sefton	271.588	260.465	-11.123	-4.1%
St Helens	176.510	168.318	-7.832	-4.4%
Wirral	328.860	315.035	-13.825	-4.2%
Merseyside Fire	67.863	64.048	-2.816	-4.1%

The population covered by each is different though, so here is a table showing the spend by dwelling.

Local Authority	2013-14 Spending Power (adjusted) per Dwelling	2014-15 Spending Power including Efficiency Support Grant per Dwelling (£ per dwelling)		Change £ per dwelling
Knowsley	3,058.35	2,886.12	-172.23	-5.6%
Liverpool	2,636.01	2,492.39	-143.62	-5.4%
Sefton	2,164.67	2,076.01	-88.65	-4.1%
St Helens	2,193.15	2,095.64	-97.51	-4.4%
Wirral	2,250.35	2,155.75	-94.60	-4.2%
Merseyside Fire	107.10	102.65	-4.44	-4.1%

But what about the Shire I can imagine a politician saying (seemingly forgetting that the Shire is better known for being a fictional place inhabited by hobbits in a fictional world invented by JRR Tolkien)? There are five types of shire, shire unitaries with and without fire, shire counties with and without fire and shire districts. The change in their spending power collectively of each type of shire varies from a 1.2% drop (for shire counties with fire) to a 2.9% drop (for shire unitaries without fire). So yes, in percentage terms the cuts to shires’ budgets are less than the drop in Wirral’s spending power.

However it’s important to note that the spending power of shires was to start with much lower per a dwelling to begin with than Wirral’s. These range from £296.22 per a dwelling for shire districts compared to Wirral’s £2,250.35 to an average of £2,028.61 per a dwelling for shire unitaries with fire.

But what about North Dorset (which seems to be the favourite council for certain Wirral politicians to compare Wirral to)? Well North Dorset has about a fifth of the dwellings that Wirral does. Its spending power for 2013-14 is £7.729 million (2.4% of Wirral’s). Its cut is 2.8% of its budget. Personally I hardly think it’s a fair comparison (although I very much doubt that’ll stop Labour politicians using it).

If we compare Wirral Council to other Merseyside councils (plus the fire authority), the cuts to Wirral Council aren’t exceptional or extraordinary. If we rank the cuts as a percentage to the five councils on Merseyside (plus the fire authority) the cuts to Wirral Council’s budget only come out at fourth.

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EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub (continued)

Continues from EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub.

Tony (Merseytravel officer): Also the plot in front of you doesn’t have any access to the highway and fronts the street. There’s very little space in that it’s actually quite a small plot of land.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Liverpool City Council, Labour): Tony?

Cllr Anthony Carr (Sefton Council, Labour): Thanks Tony too. Do you have any details of the acquisition of the land neighbouring the land and when the current owners took possession of that land about the date that they purchased that land for? Whether it was because it was a big piece of land…about it was eighteen months.. the land valuation office about the land valuation office so it gives you a better guide as to not what they wanted, but what they already paid for the land that they’ve already got?

Tony (Merseytravel officer): I’m sorry I don’t have those details but I’ll see what I can find out.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Liverpool City Council, Labour): Again Steve?

Cllr Steve Foulkes (Wirral Council, Labour): I suggest progress Chair that I think this, now that it’s a public document which I think it should be, the land valuation is out there and in you know the public arena. We’re unlikely then, to get any more than this for this piece of land but can we ask officers to consider the options that Members have raised when parcels of land like this as a general policy that we go to auction or we use that methodology to see if we can get the best return we can on any piece of land or any asset that we sell?

Cllr Liam Robinson (Liverpool City Council, Labour): Yeah absolutely and I think that it’s central to the way that we deal with any asset I would sell in making sure that now the District Auditor and the District Valuer at all times for any disposal or acquisition with us in getting that relevant necessary advice at all times. Mary?

Cllr Mary Rasmussen (Liverpool City Council, Labour): Just a kind of an afterthought really Chair. It would be interesting to know what pieces of land we do own and where they are so that we can be forewarned if you like we know nothing just jump out of the ground and be flogged off rather cheaply in the future? Just to make as all aware.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Liverpool City Council, Labour): And I think fundamentally all these things are captured in our asset register and it would be useful to actually have a workshop for all Members to take Members through everything that remains within the asset register and what its strategic long-term how its potential is. Ken?

Cllr Ken McGlashan (Knowsley Council, Labour): Thanks Chairman. We used to have a New Deal for Communities earlier in across my area in Huyton and when we demolished about eleven hundred houses the price of the land then was at the maximum. Now we’re lucky to get a third of that price for that land and what we’re looking to do now is hold onto the land so we’ve got a development project. We already have developments there.

When they’ve finished one plot, hopefully that will sort of drive up the price of the next plot up. So the price of land at the moment is at an all time low and about ..%. The price has been advertised so nobody is going to pay more than the advertised price.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Liverpool City Council, Labour): Gordon?

Cllr Gordon Friel (Sefton Council, Labour): Just really a technical point on how we put this in the public domain. If we decided that we really wanted to seek an auction price for this meeting, we’d have declared our hand by it being a public document. Would we compromise ourselves? So I just wonder … that the information was regarding this, the mark down, but are we best advised putting this in the public arena with this being sold in anyway? Thank you very much Chair.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Liverpool City Council, Labour): Ok, if there’s no further contributions, if I can move the recommendation in paragraph seven of the report?

Councillors: Agreed.

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EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub

At Thursday’s meeting of Merseytravel, councillors had to decide whether to sell a Liverpool pub (bought for £106,174 in May 2009) for only £18,000. The pub was bought as part of the since axed Merseytram scheme. According to the report prepared for councillors it was “overgrown with vegetation”, “substantially demolished” and only retained its front walls. Due to fly tipping Merseytravel was served with a “environmental enforcement order” by Liverpool City Council. Despite its unloved state, since being purchased by Merseytravel, “minimal works to improve the site have been completed by Ascot Property Group in 2013”.

Budget Meeting, Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority
Thursday, 6th February, 2014 2.30 pm

Agenda Item 6 (Disposal of Land)

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Item number six is the disposal plans, Tony’s going to actually present that <A HREF="“>report, I’m just going to make the point that this part of the land is actually falls within my ward, I’ve checked with the Monitoring Officer and I don’t need to declare an interest because I have no personal interest in the matter. I did want to make that clear beforehand, so Tony?

Tony (Merseytravel officer): Thank you Chair. Yeah, Merseytravel owns a small plot of land on the corner of West Derby Road as you can see in the report. This proposal is to accept an offer for the sale of it to an organisation called The Lofts (Ormskirk) Management Limited.

The background to this property purchase on behalf of our Merseytram scheme was to secure the land for the tram. Obviously now that the site is owned by ourselves, we’ve further looked to try and dispose of it. We have taken a decision it’s important to establish.

Effectively the building is just a façade, it’s just a shell, it’s an old pub, it’s derelict, it’s been knocked down. In fact recently it was identified by the city council as an eyesore and obviously I’ve been exploring there’s actually been a lot of debris and fly tipping from the site. At the moment it’s a liability to us and what we’re looking to try and do is dispose of it.

The advice of the District Auditor is effectively we should pursue a meeting and sell to the adjacent landowner, who’s actually preparing a land package to … a large … of the site. Our understanding is that there’s going to be a planning application for residential and then retail usage. The proposal is that we’ve had from them is to sell for £18,000 which is a reduction on what we purchased it for, details are in the report and if you want me to take any questions Chair on the proposal?

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Yeah, thanks Tony. Les and Steve.

Cllr Steve Foulkes (Wirral Council, Labour): Yeah, I can understand the issues around this particular piece of land and it’s got a history of causing us problems. We are expending revenue on looking after the piece of land I guess, but my question and challenge is really about how we deal with what maybe I don’t know a portfolio of bits of land that are this. Some of them may be a remnant of Merseytram, others may be different but particularly there is another methodology of getting rid of land where you go through open auction, you do it through an agent and you don’t know who the owner is. Sometimes that brings a better price or a worse price.

The argument that’s sort of been discussed or debated is should we have gone to auction with this rather than just simply .. bid we’d have got more money. Or if we auctioned it now with a reserve price of £18,000 would we get more potentially?

Tony (Merseytravel officer): I’ll just say Chair, we did look at obviously going to auction there’s a cost but there’s no guarantees that there’d be buyers. The advice from the District Auditor was that the best option including the landlord who’s actually bought the plots of land is to make the best bid. If we want to open auction there would only be one bid and we may only get the reserve price.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Shane do you want to add to that?

Shane Fitzpatrick (Senior Head of Operations, Merseytravel): Just to add a comment on that, the land obviously was acquired from the Liverpool City Council and one of the conditions of the sale was to offer that back as an option. That was not, there was no take up on that offer.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair, (Liverpool City Council, Labour)): Thanks for that Shane, I’ve got Les first and then Tony.

Cllr Les Rowlands (Wirral Council, Conservative)): Chair, I was going to bring up the auction thing but that having been said now, looking at what it was bought for £106,000 and what we’re asking for it now £18,000 is actually a very low price for a plot of land that’s built some buildings on.

I mean I know in Wirral there’s been some damage to prices, but round about £80,000 to £90,000 for a plot of land for a house. So when I see £18,000 I mean I take it into account that it is a piece of land that’s been you know misused, fly tipping and everything else but it’s still a fair amount of land for £18,000. Surely you could have done a bit better than £18,000?

Tony (Merseytravel officer): Obviously that reflects the condition of the land. It’s actually derelict and it’s only a façade wall, it’s completely derelict land. Also …

Continues at EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub (continued).

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Merseytravel: Scrutiny Committee 3rd June 2013 “Fares Review” Cllr Steve Foulkes “where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case”

A report about Merseytravel’s Scrutiny Committee meeting of the 3rd June 2013: Fares Review Cllr Steve Foulkes “where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case”

Merseytravel: Scrutiny Committee 3rd June 2013 “Fares Review” Cllr Steve Foulkes “where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case”

Unfortunately Standing Order 61 of Merseytravel’s rules in a section marked “Confidentiality” states “No record of the proceedings (or part of the proceedings) of a meeting may be taken to enable persons not present to see or hear any such proceedings without express permission” so sadly there won’t be any accompanying photos or video footage to this report. Perhaps Merseytravel didn’t get the letter from Bob O’Neill about this issue.

Attending the meeting were the Chair, Cllr Malcolm Sharp (Labour, Knowsley), Cllr Steve Foulkes (Labour, Wirral), Cllr Liam Robinson (ex-officio, Labour, Liverpool), Cllr Anthony Carr (Labour, Sefton), Cllr Joanne Calvert (Labour, Liverpool), Cllr Hayley Todd (Labour, Liverpool), Cllr John Dodd (Merseytravel Alliance Signals Good Governance (which is what the Lib Dem/Conservative coalition calls itself on Merseytravel although Cllr John Dodd is a Liberal Democrat), Sefton as well as various Merseytravel officers.

The Chair started by welcoming their new Chief Executive, David Brown to the meeting. David Brown replaces their former Chief Executive Neil Scales after a brief stint by their current Deputy Chief Executive Frank Rogers as Interim Chief Executive. Mr. Brown gets a salary of £149,000. As he [David Brown] was attending his first meeting, the Chair (of the Scrutiny Committee surely who’s very raison d’être would be to scrutinise Merseytravel officers’ decisions?) said that Mr. Brown, the new Chief Executive was there purely as an “observer” and not to ask him “any questions” or “put him on the spot”.

The meeting started with the Chair asking for any apologies for absence. Apologies were given for Cllr Pauline Walton (Labour, Liverpool). The Chair asked for any declarations of interest. Nobody gave any. He then asked if the minutes of the meeting held on the 27th April 2013 were agreed as a true record of the last meeting? They were agreed.

An officer referred to by the Chair as Liz introduced item 4 Fares Review which also had an enclosure. She referred to a decision at an earlier Scrutiny Committee meeting on their priorities for the coming year and that the first workshop had been held in May. Liz said it had been well attended by councillors, not just those on the Scrutiny Committee and the workshop had brought up two potential topics to be considered. After it had been discussed with the Chair [of the Scrutiny Committee] the first two items for scrutiny had been decided as a Fares Review and an Operator Interface Review. These would report back in September, the appendix detailed the aims of the Fares Review and the expert witnesses. She said that at 9b (of the report) it asked for councillors to be nominated to be involved in the Fares Review, instead of deciding now this would be done after the Annual Meeting of Merseytravel on the 27th June. The Chair asked for any comments.

Mr. Worry (Mr. Men) from mrmen.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Worry

Cllr Steve Foulkes said, “Thanks Chair, I have no problem with the Terms of Reference, particularly whilst it talks about excluding us from the work that’s been going on around young people because I know that’s underway. There’s been a great deal of work on that. It would be very helpful to Scrutiny Committee for that report when that’s ready to come back to us as well as part of our overall look at fares and I think it’s an issue really that if we are in tune with the public, I think it’s something the public want us to do and I think a well documented and well thought out piece of work on scrutiny would not only be used within this organisation but be used further afield to make people recognise indeed some of the discrepancies that there are.

Certainly for the public it’s a very confusing picture outside, out there now for fares and that. I think about my own sort of various grievances I have, where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case. If you’ve got an offer or there’s something that can save people money, it should be known automatically before people plan their journey. So I think we can be part of the bigger picture, I think it’s about going to areas to work on that are something that look, hopefully encourage Scrutiny [Committee] to do more pieces of work and I was thinking it’s a healthy start to our Executive/Scrutiny split so that’s what I wanted to say and thank you.”

For Whom the Tunnel Tolls

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Are the cuts to Wirral Council’s budget really as bad as politicians have told us?

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EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub (continued)

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EXCLUSIVE: Incredible £88,174 loss made by Merseytravel on sale of Liverpool pub

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Merseytravel: Scrutiny Committee 3rd June 2013 “Fares Review” Cllr Steve Foulkes “where you can go on a bus and you hear people say, “What’s the cheapest deal today?” you know and that shouldn’t be the case”

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