MPs and Councillors talk about Very Light Rail National Innovation Centre in Dudley

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Dudley North MP Marco Longhi, Dudley Council Leader Patrick Harley and Minister of State for Rail and HS2 Huw Merriman talk about the new Very Light Rail National Innovation Centre in Dudley as part of the minister's visit

Transcript

00:00 I'm delighted to have Minister for Rail Hugh Merriman here. I've met Hugh several times

00:07 in Parliament discussing different projects for Dudley. It's great that he's come to Dudley

00:11 today to visit what we're doing with the Very Light Rail scheme, but also the fact that

00:16 he's seen for himself that we've got a unique track in the United Kingdom for testing not

00:21 just Very Light Rail but all sorts of other rail concepts, and also to visit the BCIMO

00:28 building where we can do all sorts of maintenance, refurbishment and test new technologies within

00:33 the building itself. So Hugh is here today and I'm delighted to be able to be with him,

00:37 as well as Council Leader Patrick Hardy who has been massively supportive for the scheme

00:43 and through his work on the Combined Authority and Andy Street as well.

00:47 I'll just add in on to Mark Oles' final words, this is a great example of the collaboration

00:52 between Coventry City Council and Dudley Council. This has been a long time in the making, but

00:58 it is great to be here and to see the latest endeavours of our hard work over many years.

01:04 This is a game changer for public transport, it means we can roll out trams across cities

01:09 and towns across not just the local region but across Europe and across the world. That's

01:14 a third and a large less cost than the traditional tram and metro, and that's good for this region.

01:21 I'll just say it's great to be here, it's really unique, innovative technology that's

01:26 being deployed here and really this looks to be the future. So we want more mass transit

01:30 systems in place, very light rail means you can actually put it into more places. So I

01:34 just want to say a big thanks to you all, the entire team, for showing me what is a

01:38 fantastic product and a long wait.

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