Nottingham's new tram service is about to get the green light

摘要

For those who have been closely involved in the process, NET, the Nottingham Express Transit, has been a long time in coming. The process began in the early nineties at a time when it was necessary to seek an individual Act of Parliament for a new tram line to be built. That process was completed in 1994 when the Greater Nottingham Light Rapid Transit Act received Parliamentary approval. But there was nothing rapid about it. Getting the parliamentary go ahead had been an enormously time consuming and laborious process and by the time it was achieved, the plan languished for lack of funding. This was finally solved in 1998 when the Government provided vital support by announcing that the scheme would receive ￡179 million in a Private Finance Initiative. The partners in the scheme are Nottingham City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham Development Enterprise who set up a joint company, GNRT to be the promoters and developers of the NET. GNRT in turn appointed a consortium called Arrow made up of the railway systems engineers Adtranz, civil engineering contractor Carillion, French tramway operator Transdev and local bus operator Nottingham City Transport. Arrow has been responsible for financing, designing and building NET and will operate the new system.