Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry
Day 38
Today was what seemed to be
another good day for the objectors, but I would urge all my readers to catch a
bit of the real thing from these links below of the audio tapes of each session
of the Enquiry and judge for themselves whether my blog is merely a rant or
actually based on some kind of fact.
You decide!
(If you’re impatient, just skip
forward to the last half hour of the final session of the day.)
Here’s the action for Day 38
In the first morning session of
Day 38 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry Emeritus Professor Peter Bonsall
cross examines the recalled Mr Neil Chadwick on the business case focussing on
the arguments around passenger preferences.
In the late morning session of
Day 38 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, 22 July 2014, Professor Bonsall
concludes his re-examination of Mr Neil Chadwick on the business case and
justification for the NGT proposals, and is then followed by Gregory Jones QC
who commences his own cross examination.
In the early afternoon session of
Day 38 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, 22 July 2014, Gregory Jones QC
continues his cross examination of Mr Neil Chadwick on the business case for
the NGT trolleybus focussing on the methodology and research which is claimed
to support the choice of pursuing this scheme.
In the late afternoon of Day 38
of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, 22 July 2014, Gregory Jones QC continues to
cross examine Mr Neil Chadwick on the business case underlying the NGT
trolleybus scheme proposals.
*
Today was a day I had been
looking forward to for some while, since Gregory Jones QC had not yet been set
on Mr Neil Chadwick and the objectors mostly seemed to feel that this would be
a examination worth witnessing.
First of all we had just over a
session from Professor Peter Bonsall who attacked some new evidence which had
been included in a note which had been given in response to a written question
(so far as I understood the procedure but it may be some slight variation on
that). Anyway there was sufficient
justification for the Professor to wear away at the unhappy Mr Chadwick for an
hour and a half.
I have to confess, that as a
layperson some of today’s questioning did seem a little repetitive, going as it
was into immense detail on such matters as the transport consultation that this
scheme has largely been based on, but I can assure you that while to the ears
of you and I it may seem that the same point is covered again and again, that
cannot be the case as the eagle eared Mr Whitehead would have swooped on either
Professor Bonsall or Mr Jones the moment such a thing happened. In fact he actually at one point commented
on how exemplary the Professor’s cross examination was, which would hardly have
occurred had he been raising the Inspector’s ire with time wasting repetition.
One aspect of Mr Chadwick’s case
which came repeatedly under fire today from both interrogators was the consultation which had shown a
very new bus to members of the public and compared it with an old bus. Apparently the business and transport
consultants who have worked up NGT over the last few years used the consensus
preference for the new bus as a basis on which to ‘make a judgement’ as they
would say, that this meant people would then prefer a trolleybus to a regular
bus.
I kid you not. This is one of the foundational pillars on
which the case for the trolleybus rests, if dressed up in fancy ways. They even appear to have disregarded a
statistically significant survey which showed no preference for a trolleybus. It’s hard work getting these things winkled
out of Mr Chadwick as he does seem to spend a lot of time not really answering
the questions and so we have to rely on the detailed persistence of our two
foremost spearhead cross examiners the Professor and Mr Jones to excavate this
terrain.
I will admit that listening to
this can be a lengthy and somewhat exhausting process, but it is a fascinating
battle of wills from which Mr Chadwick rarely seemed to come out well.
I would draw attention to the last
twenty minutes or so of the day when the subject of economic viability is
reached. Mr Chadwick seems to have
taken a view that the scheme is so likely to be granted full approval that he
and his team have not worked up some parts of it which they hope to do at a
later stage. Mr Jones corners Neil
Chadwick with the prospect of how the project would be underwritten and how
Metro (and therefore Council Tax payers) would have to pay if it didn’t make a
profit and allow for the required borrowing to be repaid.
All simple stuff really, and you
might have think that this kind of thing would have been sorted at an early
stage, but apparently it hasn’t. There
was a powerful moment when the Inspector chimed in to say that he didn’t agree
with what Mr Chadwick had said, and that he agreed with what Mr Jones had
said. He had to be responsible to the
Secretary of State about making a determination of whether to recommend it to
him or not in his report.
This is where you see the reality
of the position the Inspector is in.
There was some speculation way back months ago before the Enquiry
started as to what we should expect of the Inspector. One view had it that he would be a puppet of the government and
covertly instructed to go through the motions and then rubber stamp the
approval.
As the Enquiry has proceeded I
would suggest that most of us have, more and more, become confident of the
Inspector on the basis of the questions we have heard him ask.
Taking a longer view, one can
appreciate that if a massive budget project like this was a spectacular
failure, it would reflect very poorly on the judgement of the Inspector should
he have recommended it and would probably lead to a serious downturn in his
career.
One can only speculate that the
team behind NGT really never seriously thought that they would be challenged in
so much detail on this scheme, otherwise there is no real explanation as to why
their case has been so poorly researched and developed.
Before I close for the night I
would just like to draw your attention to the site I have linked just
below. When I was seeking a host for
the recordings of the Public Enquiry, at rather short notice, Mixcloud turned
up as one which had unlimited free upload space with streaming, which fitted
the absolute requirements. Downloading
did not seem to be offered.
Rumours that some had actually
been downloading the files from the Mixcloud pages had me baffled and I still
don’t know how they do that, but I have found this page where you can download
each audio file as you require them and here is the link. So I hope many listeners of the trolleybus
tapes will take the opportunity to download these files and help back up the archive. It should also be some help for those whose
devices have struggled with the levels on some of the earlier recordings while
streaming.
