[locojoe]

From the Railnews pages.
Birmingham New Street ‘right answer for 20-30 years’ — Minister
Posted: 23rd September 2008
THE Minister for the West Midlands has dismissed MPs’ criticisms of plans to redevelop Birmingham New Street station, saying the existing station is “the right answer for the next two or three decades.”

Last July the Parliamentary Transport Select Committee published a report describing the plans to redevelop New Street station as cosmetic, and said: “We are not convinced that the current project is adequate. The government must address the issue of whether Birmingham New Street is ever going to be able to accommodate the throughput of trains required in two or three decades, when the number of services might have doubled.

“If the station cannot be adapted to such throughputs, then the government must look for alternative solutions now.”

But, according to a report in The Birmingham Post, the West Midlands’ Minister—Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill—has rejected the Transport Committee’s criticism and dismissed calls for a new station, called Birmingham Grand Central, to be built about a mile east of New Street station.

The Grand Central plan has been promoted for several years by Murray Rayner, the man behind Birmingham’s highly successful Bullring shopping centre, and the major civil engineering group, Arup. It has gained the support of many professional railway operators, and the lobby group RailFuture.

But The Birmingham Post reported Liam Byrne saying New Street station should be seen in the context of a range of improvements to the region’s transport infrastructure.

Asked if Grand Central should be part of these improvements, he said: “I don’t think so. As part of a massive programme of investment in infrastructure across the region, New Street remains the right answer for the next two or three decades.”

He added: “I think the Transport Select Committee got a little bit hung up on New Street in and of itself, and I think they failed to appreciate the wider ambitions of the whole scale transformation of the West Midlands transport network
Below in artists impression of inside the new-look Birmingham New Street station.