How long does it take to build a mile of tramway?
Why it's time to devolve the Transport and Works Act Order process
Birmingham is right now building a mile long extension to the West Midlands Metro, which will end up taking 13 years in total from the initial proposal to the first trams operating. More than six years were spent in the planning process. This isn’t atypical either, tram construction experts we’ve spoken to have said that schemes in the UK take more than a decade to get built.
Countries that build trams cheaper, tend to also approve and build them faster. Dijon, France built their 12 mile tramway network in just two years, after two years of planning. Dijon’s tramway cost just £38m per mile. Birmingham’s cost six times more at £233m per mile.
To bring down the cost of building new trams in our cities, we need to sort out our slow planning system. Here’s how to speed up approvals for new tram and light rail projects.
Planning: bringing decision making closer to those who benefit
Permission for new tram lines is currently granted at a national level and kills many projects at the first hurdle. The approval, known as a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) can take up to four years to approve, costs millions to draft in consultant and legal fees and places unnecessary burdens on the project.
The challenge: Though it has its uses, the Transport and Works Act creates delays.
The Transport and Works Act (TWAO) 1992 created an alternative process to approve rail projects instead of individual acts of Parliament which were previously the only way to authorise projects. Whilst cumbersome and expensive, TWAOs provide several benefits to transport authorities creating tram schemes. They can:
enable the tramway to enact byelaws (such as penalising fare evasion);
give tramways statutory defence against ‘actions in nuisance’, which can prevent individuals winning injunctions against a new tramway because of disruption like noise or lights; and
permit compulsory purchase powers where necessary.
However, despite these undoubted benefits, the TWAO process, and its many required reports, creates too many delays and costs too much. Tram projects have to complete long environmental statements that run into the thousands of pages even for short extensions. This is especially damaging because tramways generally run through already built up areas and are much more environmentally friendly than the car alternatives. Moreover, extensive consultation is mandated, requiring outreach to every single door along the route. The process is a deterrent against new schemes and increases costs for extension projects of existing tramways. These challenges also apply to demonstrator projects. Coventry City Council were quoted a cost of £5 million to construct a half mile demonstrator track by DfT due to TWAO requirements.
The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham wanted to add a 1.05 mile extension to their tram network to intersect with the planned HS2 station at Curzon Street, and continue into Digbeth. Plans for this started in November 2013. The Metro submitted their TWAO application in October 2016. This application included at least 5,718 pages across 52 different documents, not including pages submitted ahead of the public inquiry. If laid end to end, these pages would be the same length as the tram extension itself. The Environmental Statement, and its 31 appendices, account for 3,201 of these pages. The Transport Secretary granted the TWAO in January 2020, after 40 months spent determining if Birmingham could build a mile extension on top of existing roads.
In total from the beginning of planning to the completion of construction, the Birmingham Eastside Extension will take 13 years to build one mile of tramway. In comparison, Dijon built a 12 mile tramway network in just two years, after two years of planning.
Ultimately, laying a tram track in a carriageway need be no more intrusive than any other normal road works, which are devolved and signed off at the local level. We are treating trams like high speed rail. We do not need to.
The solution: devolve approval for tram schemes
The Ministry of Housing, Local Government, and Communities and Department for Transport recently began a review of whether the Transport and Works Act 1992 (TWA) is fit for purpose. They should devolve the Transport and Works Act then create a ’TWAO light’ to streamline the delivery of tram schemes and remove unnecessary ‘heavy rail’ regulatory asks. Regional mayors should be in charge of signing off on new tram projects, not the Secretary of State. This would speed up the delivery of trams and light rail in their towns and cities and allow local elected leaders to champion the project throughout its planning. As the new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer put it, ‘those with skin in the game know what’s best for their communities, and that does require us to be bold about pushing power and resource out of Whitehall.’
Trams have significant environmental benefits. For example by encouraging people to switch to public transport from their cars, Nottingham’s tram contributed to a 25% fall in the city’s emissions. Requirements to complete environmental statements should be removed for areas where the tram runs on existing roads or through built up areas.
In France, candidates for Mayor can promise to build a tramway as an election pledge and they then have the power to approve, build, and fund the project within their six year term. Britain should aim for similar speed. Devolving TWAOs is a key step to speed up building.
Previously, we discussed how UK tram projects have to move nearly all of the pipes and wires below the street, almost entirely at their own expense. In the next post in this tram construction cost series, we will discuss how to fund a tram renaissance.
This post was an edited version of Back on Track: How to Build New Trams in the UK and Get Britain Moving, which was a joint project between Create Streets and Britain Remade.
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