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A walk along a proposed tram route from Phoenix Park to Kimberly and a public meeting to consider local residents campaign for the extension will be held on Monday 6th July . The walk will start at 5pm at the Phoenix Park tram stop in Cinder Hill and proceed to the Nelson and Railway pub in Station Road, Kimberley where the meeting will take place at 7:30pm at the pub.
The change in control of Nottingham County Council at the recent elections has caused concern over the future of the phase 2 proposals. Prior to the election the conservatives has stated that they would pull out of the program and withdraw their £28m contribution.
Although initially there was some softening of their attitude this only amounted to stating the might reconsider if a different route was chosen, which considering that the plans have passed through the public consultation phase was clearly not practical.
The Labour-controlled city council has since been looking at ways to plug the gap but are concerned that the County may try to put a stop to lines two and three for good. they have warned that this may have repercussions on other spending plans such as the A453 where improvements were planned on the tram being in place to reduce traffic. There are several other developments including redevelopment of Beeston town centre which could be adversely impacted by the failure to build the tram.
There has been considerable pressure on the council including 13 big employers had asked council leader Kay Cutts not to impede progress of the scheme and the Notts Campaign for Better Transport has warned that the county's public transport risks falling behind the rest of the world.
Update 31 March 2009
Government ministers, having considered the Inspector's report of the lengthy Public Inquiry held in December 2007, have granted the Transport and Works Act Order for the proposed NET Phase Two extensions to Clifton and Chilwell via Beeston.
The TWAO gives the joint promoters,Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council, the legal powers to acquire the land, build and operate NET Phase Two. The regeneration benefits of the scheme played a key part in the planning inspector’s decision to give the scheme the go-ahead. Evidence from NET Line 1 had shown that the tram had been successful in reducing car use, the approval letter said. It added that the inspector was satisfied the scheme would assist the regeneration of Nottingham’s Southside and Beeston town centre.
It is a Government requirement that a quarter of the funding for such projects has to be raised locally. Nottingham City Council has proposed to generate much of this funding by introducing a workplace parking levy. A decision on government funding, and on Nottingham city council’s proposed parking levy will be taken in due course by transport ministers. Previous experience has indicated that this process could be a lengthy one.
Proposals which form the case for NET Phase Two, the proposed extension of Nottingham’s tram system to Clifton and Chilwell, have been submitted by Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council, as joint Promoters, to the Government and have gone on display to the public this week.
The application documents are available for viewing for a six week period ending on 7th June 2007 at a number of venues close to the proposed route and on the NET Phase Two website, www.netphasetwo.com.
It is expected that a Public Inquiry will be held, which is likely to take place approximately six months after the application has been submitted. The whole process, leading to a decision by the Secretary of State, is expected to take up to 18 months from the date of application.
If the TWAO application is approved by the Government then the NET Project Team can ask private companies to bid for the work of building and running NET Phase Two. The successful company, whose appointment will have to be approved by both the City and County Councils, would take over running NET Line One as well as building and running NET Phase Two. Construction could start in 2010 with trams running on the extended NET system by 2013.
NET Phase Two has reached another milestone with Nottingham City Council voting in favour of applying for the powers to build and operate the tram extensions to Chilwell and Clifton by a majority of 31.
Nottinghamshire County Council had previously voted to support the application on 22nd February. As joint Promoters for the scheme the City and County Councils will now apply to Government for a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) to obtain the legal powers to buy land, build and run NET Phase Two. The application is expected to be formally submitted in April.
From March 9th, tram tickets will be available from over 100 agents in the Nottingham and North Notts areas. This is due to a new partnership between NET and PayPoint.
PayPoint is the UK's leading branded retail network for the convenient local payment of household bills, mobile top-ups and transport tickets. They also handle payments for the London congestion charge and recently won the contract for TV licensing payments.
A customer will receive a ticket from the special PayPoint terminals at the agents, this is then sealed in a wallet. Payment is taken by the retailer, dependent on their set-up, which may or may not include facilities for accepting credit/debit cards.
In the Nottingham area, paypoint has 134 outlets, 43 of them very close to tramstops and include independent shops and groups such as Londis and the Co-op. A locator is available on the NET website and a special leaflet with a map of agents will be available on trams.
Customers who purchase tram tickets via Paypoint will receive a discount, when compared with buying their ticket on the tram. Furthermore, the current ticketing system does not cater for tram-only users who wish to travel on a ticket longer in validity than a week.