Today, I feel like Ray Winstone. I imagine there are worse people to feel like.
Dustin Diamond from ‘Saved By The Bell’, for example: I’m certain it’s worse to feel like Dustin Diamond than Ray Winstone. Just Google him. Look at his hair. Look at his face.
So feeling like Ray Winstone isn’t so bad. I should probably be more specific though. I feel like Ray Winstone as Gary ‘Gal’ Dove, the purportedly-retired safecracker in timeless, crime-full Brit-flick Sexy Beast.
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Gal plays the archetypal ‘one last job’ merchant; the weary criminal given an offer they unquestionably should refuse but, for reasons of predictable plot mechanics, feel obliged to accept. Gal, despite sporting a coruscating tan indicating a life of sun-soaked contentment, is not happy. Gal has been cornered into reliving past misdemeanours and, crikey, does it make him miserable.
But why does Gal feel so bad? Don Logan. Gal is forced back into crime by Don Logan, an unfeasibly angry nutjob who exudes malice and halitosis.
This takes me to Birmingham PR consultant David Kuczora. The Don Logan to my Gal Dove. He one-last-jobbed me at the end of a blog he wrote about Birmingham’s largely bobbins public transport.
So here I am: writing about public transport. Again.
However, Birmingham City Council’s decision to essentially shunt prospective Moseley and Kings Heath railway stations into the sidings is indeed a provocative one.
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It’s been a long time (not) coming. In 1941, railways stations (including Moseley and Kings Heath) on the Camp Hill line were closed, attributable to a wartime economy measure. Now, in 2013, it seems as though the closure is permanent. This time we can put it down to a Bore-time economy measure.
Last week, it was reported that the Labour-run cabinet’s decision to sell land near the Camp Hill Chords rail link had been backed by Birmingham City Council’s economy, jobs and skills scrutiny committee. Bad news for the campaigners who see the line’s reopening as economically and socially advantageous for the city. The flipside is that the line’s redevelopment could benefit industry: the Birmingham Mail stated that engineering services firm Sulzer Dowding and Mills eyed part of the track as suitable for its own expansion plans. On this basis, you can’t summarily criticise a decision that could benefit local employment, the region’s productivity and aid our council’s well-publicised financial black hole.
Nevertheless, I’m with the campaigners. A month ago, Sir Albert Bore dominated the Birmingham Post’s front page with his ten-year transport vision.
A few naysayers at the time wondered how this vision sat with Bore’s ‘Jaws of Doom’ narrative – this latest development hints that the naysayers are right to say nay.
Sir Bore spoke in May about making this a “hospitable and accessible city”. The A435 through Moseley and Kings Heath, and the No.50 Bus Route of Hellfire, is usually inhospitable and as accessible as a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses translated into Klingon. Therefore reopening the railway line, after years of false starts, would’ve been a symbolic move towards improving accessibility on one of the city’s most congested commuter routes.
Regardless of the strong accessibility case for reopening the Camp Hill line, the reported project cost was always going to be problematic. The case for spending £150 million on a couple of train platforms is hard to justify in a climate where children’s services are being cut. So are the potential long-term economic benefits of such expenditure compelling enough?
Probably, in my admittedly inexpert eyes. After all, that line is never going to be short of passenger revenue, when it would be servicing a populous of over 24,000 people. The increasingly diverse retail and entertainment offer in B13 would be boosted by a quick, direct rail link from a central hub.
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There would also be an immediate uplift in the local property market, with an ignition in demand for those looking to commute to their city centre workplace. Moseley and Kings Heath are patently the city’s residential areas with most appeal to young city professionals wanting a proper grown-up home. Birmingham is always keen to push its credentials as a city for the young: making the home of Hare and Hounds, Carters of Moseley and the Prince of Wales more accessible would certainly boost those credentials.
The link between accommodation and public transport certainly shouldn’t be sidelined. It’s significant that Coventry and Warwickshire has recently lauded an announcement that Kenilworth will be graced with a railway station for the first time since the 1960s. It’s not just those in Coventry and Warwickshire that’ll be excited about this – initiatives like this will appeal to those wanting away from Birmingham city centre after work. People who may have been lured to a commuter-friendly Moseley (thus boosting the economy there), will instead be drawn to likes of Kenilworth as another temptation away from living in Birmingham.
Put simply, it’s another example of how short-termism prevents Birmingham from being the city it deserves to be. This city has been strangled by its transport infrastructure for years: now we hear that a project that would help loosen that grip has been stymied.
It’s sad. Makes me want to go all Don Logan on somebody.
* Keith Gabriel is a Birmingham-based PR account manager