New Street Station: the future starts here

Much excitement in the Post newsroom last night when our Westminster correspondent told us he had confirmation of today’s Government announcement of the go-ahead for the redevelopment of New Street Station http://tinyurl.com/2avlsv.

In my two years at the Post, hardly a week has passed without us running a major story on this sorry saga of infighting and argument over the future of the station. Indeed, for the past few months, we’ve been publishing a running total of the number of days that have elapsed since we were last told a resolution was ‘imminent’ (it was 127 days today).

So it felt rather odd last night to be reporting that the city will, after all, have a shiny new station in time for the Olympics. And, at the end of the evening, the feeling was one of anti-climax.  While wanting to take nothing away from those whose herculean efforts resulted in today’s announcement, the fact is we needed a New Street upgrade decades ago. Now, the city has to catch up those lost years – and at the same time use the New Street success to push for the extension of the airport’s runway, the extension of the Metro RTS and the upgrade of the main rail lines which serve the city.

Please don’t think we’re ungrateful – just impatient.