At this evening’s public meeting at Heart, a lady asked how many meetings Metro has had with Tbus, the trolleybus lobby group.
Lady in the audience I’m really concerned about the problem of lobbying, both locally and nationally, I’m concerned too that the Tbus trolleybus lobby group is a key stakeholder in this project. So my question is, “How many meetings have you had with Tbus?”
Councillor Richard Lewis I’ll answer that from my point of view. I’ve never met them.
Councillor James Lewis I’ve never met them either.
Dave Haskins There was a slide I put up at the previous presentation where I listed a number of what I call “stakeholders”. It’s a horrible word. Stakeholders to me are people we communicate with, people we deal with. Operators are stakeholders. Passengers are stakeholders. I hate the word stakeholders by the way. But, there’s a group in the UK called the Tbus Organisation, Tbus.org I think their website is. There’s also groups around the world called UITP who are a global force in knowledge around transport and passenger transport and public transport. There are operators, there are manufacturers, there’s all kinds of people out there. I speak to all of them. All of them. Because they have knowledge, they can help me, give technical information. And I’d be stupid not to speak to these people quite frankly. I’d be stupid to sit at my ask in Leeds and try to learn about how to deliver some things of a high technical nature when there are people far more experienced than me round the world who can give that knowledge. Tbus are a voluntary group very much like what we would have here, a local business group. Tbus, a group of individuals who are enthusiastic about trolleybuses. If you look at their magazines, they’re quite enthusiastic about vintage trolleybuses in some respects, some of them. Some of them like to travel around on the vintage trolleybuses around Europe. I’ve met some of them who have talked to me at length about travelling around on vintage trolleybuses around Europe, which doesn’t interest me in the slightest OK? But equally, they know a lot of information about modern trolleybuses, and they point me in the right direction of who I should speak to, to get knowledge
Gentleman in the audience But they have quite a vested interest in trolleybuses.
Dave Haskins They have no financial interest whatsoever.
Gentleman in the audience I think they do.
Dave Haskins Not that I’m aware of.
Image courtesy of Beth Felice