A joint venture between the new West MidlandsCombined Authority (WMCA), Colas Rail, Egis Rail, Tony Gee and Pell Frischman, known as the Midland Metro Alliance, has been created to deliver planned extensions of Birmingham’s tram network.
The alliance will oversee the design and construction of extension projects due to be delivered over the next few years.
The £1.2 billion Midland Metro expansion programme includes new lines to Centenary Square, Edgbaston and Curzon Street. An extension along Pipers Row in Wolverhampton to the city’s railway station is also planned and a business case is currently being compiled to connect the line at Wednesbury to Brierley Hill.
WMCA said it will be the first time the city has used an alliance model to deliver a major infrastructure programme such as this.
Midland Metro Alliance director Iain Anderson said: “This is an extremely exciting opportunity for all parties within the alliance.
“The scale of the proposed development programme, and the commitment to a 10-year duration provides us with a unique opportunity to develop efficient bespoke solutions, build long-term relationships with key stakeholders and to play a major role in the enhancement of the communities within which we will be operating.”
In May, the first extension of the Midland Metro network was completed. The line extended the system beyond Birmingham Snow Hill station through the city centre to New Street station.
You have missed out the company ‘Auctus Management Group’ as part of the Midland Metro Alliance.
Is there any more plans to extend the Midland Metro to Westfield Merry Hill Shopping Centre outskirts of Birmingham City Centre where the trams would serve the shopping centre.
Even though the Midland Metro could be extended to Birmingham International Airport and to serve the Airport aswell NEC exhibition centre and the railway station nearby and a new P&R site close to the M6 motorway and possibly the tram network could extend to Coventry and Coventry Airport aswell which is costly and might not happen at all.
This extension, from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill via Dudley town centre and Merry Hill, is part of the package of lines the new alliance has been set up to deliver. You can see the original plans (from 2002) if you hunt around on Centro’s Midland Metro website under future extensions, and up to date information on the Alliance’s own website (if you can find it: at the moment I can’t). Most of this line would be built alongside the mothballed South staffs freight route, with street running through Dudley and Merry Hill.
Merry Hill Shopping Centre used to have its own monorail but it closed down but yes the extension of the Midland Metro tram to Merry Hill shopping centre could happen if the local council and the Centro agree to extend the tram network to Merry Hill shopping centre.