The Tyne and Wear Metro’s electricity costs look set to spiral almost £10m over budget.
Transport bosses have called on the Government to offer more emergency support for the Metro, following Liz Truss’ long-awaited announcement of a household bills freeze, to prevent trains being cancelled over the coming months. The Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed in July that Metro operator Nexus was predicting that the electric-powered system’s high voltage power bills would come in a £4m higher than forecast.
But, as the global energy crisis deepens, the situation has deteriorated further. Nexus finance chiefs now predict a £9.5m shortfall and say they are “making the point” to the Government that help will be needed. Director of finance and resources at Nexus, John Fenwick, told councillors on Thursday that the organisation had budgeted for £8.4m to be spent on high voltage power in 2022/23, but that the predicted bill had more than doubled to £17.9m – and warned there might be worse to come.
