asdf wrote:
On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:14:16 -0000, Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

Date: 23.01.07
Release: Immediate

Title: West London Tram Could Put Council Tax up £315

This is the first I've heard of the Tram being funded by a Council Tax
increase. Won't it just be paid for out of existing transport budgets?

Quite - it's just a headline-grabbing figure. AIUI, funding for WLT
would probably need to be negotiated with central government as part of
the next investment plan, which, as now, will involve a combination of
TfL revenues, central government grant, Mayor's precept and borrowing
secured against future revenues. It could also potentially involve other
funds like TIF (Transport Innovation Fund), which would be connected to
other travel demand management projects.

The article assumes that the entire scheme would be funded out of the
Mayor's precept, which is not true.

(snip)

Notes to editors:

1. Transport for London's Survey in 2006 showed that 46% of residents
opposed the West London Tram.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/trams/download...tober-2006.pdf.

Why do they point this out? It appears to be the same survey they
referred to above, and therefore contradicts what they claimed!

The poll and consultation figures are constantly tossed around from side
to side in the WLT debate, and have all become fairly meaningless - the
only real conclusion one can draw is that opinion is quite evenly mixed.
One could also conclude that the opponents are much more vocal than the
supporters.

Until recently, the media consistently accused TfL and the Mayor of
manipulating the support figures for the tram - because the majority of
respondents to the public consultation opposed the tram, but an
independent poll showed a much more mixed opinion. The poll was a much
more reliable method of gauging public opinion (people opposed to
something are always more likely to voice their opinion than those who
support it - look at Cross River Tram where polls put support in the
nineties but media coverage is still focused on opposition issues).

3. The £315 figure is based on a £1bn estimate for the build cost,

What method did they use to come up with this estimate? This is more
than double the official estimate for the cost (£463m). The budgeted
cost, which includes a 40% risk premium, is £648m. The main anti-tram
website, Save Ealing's Streets, doesn't dispute the official figure.

Given that they don't say, and the co-incidence that it's such a round
figure, unless further clarification arrives I can only assume that
they used the pull-a-figure-out-of-your-arse-to-make-a-nice-headline
method.

I'm sure they did. They may have a point because these costs tend to
inflate anyway, but I'd be very sceptical of this figure until I saw
some supporting calculations (e.g. a comparison with cost overruns for
other UK light rail schemes).

Date: 24.01.07
Release: Immediate

Declaration of War Against the West London Tram

Think about what could be achieved with £1bn:
more police, better public services or a reduction is council tax: isn't it
a waste to throw all this money away on one white elephant transport scheme.

Right. So while the previous press release claimed that the Tram would
be entirely funded by a big Council Tax increase, this one (from the
same people) suggests that binning the project will leave a £1bn
surplus kicking around, which would be freely available to spend on
other public services or to give a reduction in Council Tax.

They're not doing their credibility any favours here.

You're right about the "money kicking around". Since a significant
proportion of the scheme cost could come from central government, the
likelihood would be that the "spare" money would be spent elsewhere in
the country. Such money would probably be in the DfT's budget, so it
would never get spent on tax reductions, police or any public services
other than transport.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London