Supertram snub was predictable, but still leaves bitter taste

[richard]

THE Government's decision not to fund the Leeds Supertram was as predictable as it was disappointing.

This administration has shown itself to be cynical in the extreme and last week's announcement by Transport Secretary Alastair Darling must have left a particularly bitter taste in the mouth of those who have worked so hard to try to make the dream of a tram system in Leeds into a reality.

When around £15bn is being ploughed into the Crossrail project in London you might expect the Government to throw a few hundred million at a crucial transport project in the North.

Unfortunately this didn't happen for what I believe are a number of reasons.

Firstly Britain winning the 2012 Olympics. We might all be supposed to be rallying around this dream sporting event but it is going to drain money away from projects elsewhere in the UK as the Government makes sure that the infrastructure is in place for such a huge event to take place.;
Secondly Leeds is already dominated by Labour MPs so donning my own cynical hat – just for a moment – I would suggest that there are more votes to be won by providing key transport projects in London rather than Leeds.

So now Leeds's claims to be a bigger and better city than both Manchester and Sheffield are seriously weakened because it doesn't have a 21st transport system and it must sit and watch its inner city roads clogging up like the veins of a 60-a-day cigarette smoker.

What will foreign business people looking at doing business within the city think about a place that claims to be a big hitter but doesn't have the clout to persuade those in Government to back its keynote projects?

I'm not saying that Leeds will be irreparably damaged by not having a tram system but its reputation hasn't been enhanced.

• TALKING of transport in this region, those running Leeds City Council have admitted that the five West Yorkshire councils are considering selling some or all of their stakes in Leeds Bradford Airport to a private operator.

Speculation has been bubbling about who might be interested. The most surprising name I've seen so far was Asda Wal-Mart. A supermarket chain running an airport? It sounds crazy and the source was one of those internet forums, but it made me think.

Imagine what could happen if a supermarket group did run an airport. If there were too many people queuing to check-in then they'd just open a few more.

The food in the cafes would never be overpriced and the tables would be cleared regularly. And think of duty free. There might actually be something worth buying in the shops.

The security and check-in staff would wear badges bearing their names and big smiley faces. They would be polite, never surly, and actively seek to help customers. Luggage would arrive promptly on the carousel after your flight.

And what about supermarkets running airlines too? Sorry, the thoughts of all that great customer service have gone to my head.

• A NEW Ilkley-based company, Jarvis Consulting, is "throwing UK businesses a lifeline to help prevent them drowning under the ever-increasing sea of emails reaching their employees", according to information they sent out last week to coincide with National Stress Awareness Day.

Businesses in the UK are being hampered by the ever increasing number of emails that each employee receives each day, with recent research conducted by the University of Loughborough and Radicati Group finding that 70 per cent of emails are attended to within six seconds, thus interrupting productive work, while it takes an average of two minutes to read an email and return to the same level of productive work and up to 20 per cent of middle and senior management time is spent using email.

The irony is that the press release about this new venture arrived via email!

08 November 2005


Source
David Parkin
david.parkin@ypn.co.uk
yorkshiretoday.co.uk