A delayed tram ride to growth? June 5, 2025 by Sir John Redwood
My area of the Thames Valley has grown rapidly for many years. We attract plenty of new business, new industrial parks and jobs. There is endless pressure for people to buy homes here, with a high rate of new housebuilding. It all puts too much demand on our limited road space, transport capacity, water supply and even on the availability of electricity. The government did not buy us a tram to get the growth started and is not proposing any extra money for the additional roads we need to cope with all the extra lorries, vans and cars the extra homes and jobs bring. Indeed any attempt to fit a tram into the totally inadequate roads we currently have would be impossible. A tram would need to join the rail tracks and add new rail capacity across green fields.
The announcement that the Chancellor has relaxed borrowing rules in order to borrow more to put trams into some additional northern and Midlands cities may be welcomed by some in the places that will get them. It sounds as if it will take until 2028 to plan the projects, with some possible early construction work just ahead of the next election. Maybe people might be using the trams during the next Parliament. If they want them then fine. However it is difficult to claim this will do anything for growth or the strength of our economy this decade and little spending anytime soon to give things a boost now. The government should not overclaim on what this might achieve.
In London and the South east we get some transport investment after the growth when we are chronically short of road space, tube capacity or other transport needs. The transport does not induce the growth but seeks to catch up with the growth. Growth comes from key sectors in a competitive free enterprise economy. Such a pity so many of the government’s tax and regulatory policies are seeking to damage that. There isn’t some new way of public sector led growth that will rescue their chosen locations with trams.
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2025/06/05/a-delayed-tram-ride-to-growth/