Risk? What risks are you talking about? All I see is certainties, possibilities and sometime never. This report is all about Peel jigging up their assets. They've been banging on for years with various 'port' proposals and getting not very far. If they were to have their way, they would have a stranglehold on transport in the Mersey basin. It's about overcoming the indifference and inertia of the LAs and other 'agencies'.
On a practical level, trans-shippment for 20 or 30 miles up the MSC makes no great contribution except it puts the boxes through Peel's hands using their under-utilised facilities. It's an underlying thread you can read throughout the report; they want to garner the up and down value as well. Improvement of D B Rd achieves the required result so much easier.
The vision it creates for me is a rabbit warren of transport, all contolled by Peel. Ha; the MSC was built in the first place to overcome Liverpool's monopoly of the Manchester traffic. How ironic! There's other things going on around there apart from Peel's aspirations. That's why I call it a blockbuster and it won't get very far.
Maybe I should be transport minster. I could certainly do with the exes. On the other hand, Merseytravel looks like a good number. Less travelling t'boot.
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Thinking about it more, FWIW, the best thing Peel could do is fill the canal in, at least east of Runcorn. It's cost far more than it's worth in bridges, tolls and general inconvenience ever since it was built. It's one of those items of infrastructure, if the parties had acted reasonably in the first place, would have been unnecessary and the capital could have been deployed elsewhere.
