The Tyne and Wear Metro is more than £30m short of critical funding to keep trains running safely, it has emerged.
Transport chiefs have warned that passengers could soon have to put up with slower and more unreliable Metro services, while some stations could even be closed down unless the government agrees to a major cash injection. Metro operator Nexus says it had planned £57m worth of renewal works across the system between 2023 and 2025, vital repairs that can include refurbishing stations, replacing track and overhead lines, and restoring bridges.
But many of those projects are set to be put on hold, after the Department for Transport (DfT) awarded just £23.8m for the modernisation efforts – a massive £33.2m short of what had been expected. While passengers will not see an immediate impact on the Metro, Nexus warned that its asset renewal programme was “needed to maintain the Metro infrastructure such that services can safely operate and without it, the service will at some point be impaired”.
