Present: Richard Slater Lancashire Business View Peter White NWDA Stephen Hunter KPMG Peter Bell Preston Bus Kathy Bell Preston Bus Henry Gilbraith Gilbraiths Frank McKenna Downtown Preston in Business Michael Damms Chamber of Commerce East Lancashire John Barnes Speakmans Dawn Wilson Lancashire Business Environment Association Ian Jones Backhouse Jones

Is congestion on Lancashire’s roads to the detriment of its economy?

Frank McKenna: It is inevitable that when you have the sort of volume of traffic we’re experiencing then there is going to be a knock-on effect on the local economy. I’ve just travelled from Up Holland – which is all of about 25 minutes away from Preston – but at this time of the day it’s taken me about an hour and I think that’s a usual experience now for early morning commuters, whether they’re going into Liverpool, Manchester or indeed Preston. The way in which we address this issue, to be honest, is that we always seem to start with the view of how can we get people out of their cars? That is where the debate begins and ends for a lot of people. For me, it has to be balanced with how we can make life easier for people who depend upon their cars.

Mike Damms: The M65 was designed as three lanes but built as two. It is a fact that the M65 is reaching super saturation and that if you drive along there in the morning, it’s dangerous. Now there’s a Catch 22 – because the motorway is near to congestion there is a restriction on planning along the motorway corridor. So, for example, the Whitebirk Estate was restricted to a proportion of its full potential. East Lancs as an economy is behind the rest of the country. How can it catch up if it’s not allowed either a decent road system or indeed, paradoxically, the same levels of congestion as other people have got so it can then join the queue to apply for further investment?

Henry Gilbraith: Congestion isn’t just a local issue – it is a national issue – but certainly I agree that in south east Lancashire and the M65 corridor, the motorway is just gridlocked. There is an extra cost in the fact that it really does take twice, or sometimes three times, as long as it should do to make deliveries. People are waiting to have their goods collected so they’re paying overtime because the roads are blocked.

Ian Jones: Lancashire does not rate particularly well against the country as a whole. Sixty-five per cent of Lancashire’s residents travel to work by car, against the national average of 61 per cent. In terms of the cost the CBI estimates that congestion costs the UK economy about £20 billion per year. A ten-mile tailback will contain an average of 8,000 vehicles, most carrying just one person. How many buses would you need to replace them?

Peter Bell: Obviously we want people to travel by bus but it is a balancing act – people still prefer cars as a method of travel. The problem we have is that for the bus to be attractive it must be reliable and cost-effective at the same time. Traffic congestion creates terrible problems for us. We’re trying to run a service within a few minutes of a timetable – we try. That’s impossible when you get traffic congestion but, unless you have a service that’s reliable, people won’t use it – it’s a vicious circle.

John Barnes: In total, we have about 140 vehicles on the road and operate a 24-hour maintenance service to a lot of select clients and we operate UK-wide so we have problems not only locally, but nationally as well. Can I just put one question to the table, and it’s something that concerns us quite regularly because we operate extensively within Greater Manchester, and that is congestion charging? Do we think that congestion charging is the be all and end all or do you think that is going to create an opportunity for Lancashire to attract business out of central Manchester?

Stephen Hunter: Having a congestion charge in Manchester might be good for Lancashire because it might encourage more professionals to come to this area.

John Barnes: It would probably cost our business in the region of £50,000 per year on congestion charges that we couldn’t possibly pass on to our customer base. So we are now looking to relocate all our businesses just outside the M60 corridor. So I see an opportunity, if you like, to attract business because of the congestion that’s in Manchester and the charging that’s going to follow.

Frank McKenna: I think congestion charging for Manchester, certainly from Preston’s and Liverpool’s perspective, would be a positive thing and that it would give those two cities more of a competitive edge. As a region we need to look at these things more strategically and, I think, that’s where the development agency’s role is actually key in this. We need to be encouraging local authorities and political leaderships right across the region to look at alternatives.

How can the Regional Development Agency make a difference?
Peter White: What Greater Manchester wants to do is to introduce a package of things in which congestion charging is one element. That is almost the price they’ll have to pay to get improved public transport. The level of services between Manchester and Liverpool is disgraceful really – in road sense it’s no better than it was 50 years ago and, locally, the M62 is one of the most difficult motorways in the country. The Government’s intention is to raise the different approaches we have and replace them with a single strategy some time after the 2009/2010. Now I don’t know how that’s going to work yet, we’re waiting for some more details, but, in theory at least, it makes sense to bring those different things together.

Mike Damms: I keep reminding people that Lancashire’s economy is actually bigger than Merseyside’s. There’s actually a very poor connection between Lancashire and Manchester and Lancashire and Leeds, and that seems to be a failure of policy, quite frankly. If those connections aren’t made then, to an extent, we end up as a kind of insular economy and that isn’t good. So we need a more coherent voice and I’m not sure we have it.
Henry Gilbraith: With fuel prices rocketing it doesn’t seem to be making any difference to whether people use their cars or not, so I just wonder if the congestion charge will make any difference to people?

John Barnes: When we relocate, the majority of our employees will move with us and it will probably mean extra travelling for some of those people. But we have a highly skilled set of people that we need to look after so, yes, we probably will be creating more congestion, but it’s necessary for the business.

Ian Jones: We started our firm in 2000 and looked at various properties, before deciding to move to a green field site outside Clitheroe. It was unusual in many ways but we now attract people on a lifestyle-choice basis because the professional staff, solicitors who will come to work at our offices, can, literally, park outside the door – they don’t have to queue to get into Manchester and they don’t have to park.

Is it possible that the lifestyle offer could be one of the routes to soften the impact of congestion?

John Barnes: Lancashire should certainly see it as a glorious opportunity to attract business. Obviously, you’re going to have to get your infrastructure right – you can work on that – but I think it’s a great opportunity for Lancashire to do well. The other point I’d like to make is that as a business operating within both Lancashire and Greater Manchester, what we are finding is that we have to be more flexible with our working hours for the staff. We now find that our offices are open from seven until six and we are very flexible on when people start and finish.

Frank McKenna: The east Lancashire authorities and the public sector side work far better together, and have more partnership arrangements in place, than happens this side of Lancashire. Central Lancashire does not have its act together and I think that’s a big problem. They should look down the M65 and see how, by coming together, the east Lancashire authorities and the private sector have actually started to work more closely together and that has made a massive difference to the perception which people have. Everywhere I go now people are talking about Pennine Lancashire.

How are we to balance the economic needs of the county with environmental and social responsibilities?
Dawn Wilson: Under a business’s corporate and social responsibility agenda, one of the key performance indicators is for the business to reduce its direct and indirect carbon emissions. One of the ways a business can do that is by looking at the indirect carbon emissions and encouraging employees to get out of their cars and onto public transport. Companies can look at how they can make it more attractive for an individual to travel to work by public transport and other things such as flexible start and finishing times. Companies should also be looking at employees from their local area so that they have got a pool of future employees to stop people travelling vast distances across Lancashire. People with an environmental conscience could be attracted to work for a business that supports those sorts of beliefs.

Do business owners merely pay lip service to environmental issues?

Henry Gilbraith: On the environmental side we’ve got Lancashire’s only remaining rail freight terminal and so far this year we’ve moved 27,000 tons by rail, which has saved almost a quarter of a million road miles. As far as the haulage industry is concerned, the fact that the cost of fuel is so high and the working time directive has come in, transport is now probably more efficient than it’s ever been before.

Ian Jones: We represent a number of HGV companies and I think that we have to look at the question of freight without the emotional prejudice. The reality is that innovations will be crucial if we are to have a successful freight industry. Longer, heavier vehicles which are 24 feet longer than a bendy bus and have the same weight as a fully armoured Challenger tank are coming to a road near you. With these Australian-style road trains, the idea is that they will increase the weight carried by 30 per cent but the volume will rise by 60 per cent. HGVs are here to stay and are imperative to this economy.

Stephen Hunter: My personal view is that the government will legislate and we will, in time, actually have to take real notice of the carbon footprint and I think that this is already on the way. For example, we have just formed a carbon advisory group to look at doing audits of people as to what they’re actually doing on the carbon footprint and I think – perhaps in ten years time – carbon will be a real issue.

Dawn Wilson: Members of the Business Environment Association have access to advisors who will work with them to look at energy use, water use, transportation and raw materials to actually identify opportunities for reducing all of those different things. The driving force is cost, but I think a lot of businesses are getting on to the idea that if they can reduce the carbon emissions then they can use that as a positive marketing tool.

What role can local authorities play?

Frank McKenna: The irony of Preston is that the best system that we could introduce for companies is a very efficient park and ride scheme. The council has started to introduce that and, lo and behold, they’ve just announced a price increase of something ridiculous – around 40 per cent – which just goes against what the strategy is. People are just simply going to get back in their cars and find alternative ways of getting into the city.

What can the bus industry do to persuade more people to use public transport?

Kathy Bell: The county council took the decision that it no longer wished to subsidise park and ride so the new contract is run on a commercial basis, which resulted in the need to put the fares up. If you just look at single fares, then they have gone up quite substantially, but for regular users we do offer a range of tickets which means that the fare has probably gone up by about 10 per cent. We think that park and ride is still an attractive option, certainly for regular users, and that the demand is still very much there. We try to provide a good bus service but we are at the mercy of traffic problems – and once the traffic jams up in Preston our service falls down considerably.

John Barnes: Yes, as a business we are environmentally aware and as a business we expect ourselves to look at all sorts of avenues to reduce costs, but also with an environmental background to it. We’ve decided to invest heavily to enable our engineers to communicate with the central office rather than having to come through the central office. Equally we place a lot of importance on making sure that the vehicles we use are efficient and serviced regularly. We know, as a company, that we’re never going to be able to reduce the road traffic we have because of the business we’re in. We have to make the best of what we’ve got in an environmental way.

Peter White: We’ve got to get bodies such as the Environment Agency and Network Rail more engaged. It’s about getting local groups and local authorities working together to determine priorities. If we do that throughout the North West, then I think we will make great strides.