The West Midlands Transport Innovation Fund bid will be formally considered for ratification by the Metropolitan Authorities at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Friday 7 October. If it is ratified it will be submitted to government that day. A decision on which local authorities will be awarded funding for their feasibility studies is expected in November.

The recent poll of drivers questioned 300 local drivers and was carried out by Accent Marketing and Research in May and June of this year.

West Midlands’ conurbation Leaders announced the start of a debate about how to address congestion in June of this year.

The Provisional West Midlands Local Transport Plan was submitted to government on July 29 2005 and signalled the conurbation’s desire to work with the Department for Transport on new approaches to tackling congestion. It also set out clear criteria that any congestion scheme would have to meet before the West Midlands could consider its adoption:

• Any schemes must improve and not detract from the region’s competitiveness
• Appropriate transport alternatives must be significantly funded and coming on stream to provide choice
• There must be discussions about possible ways of hypothecating of revenues for reinvestment in transport in the West Midlands
• The innovation and knowledge base of the West Midlands should be fully utilised in taking any initiatives forward.

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