No standing mass-transit delivery unit or rolling tram programme for second cities

Centre for Cities shows big UK cities systematically underperform their size: Manchester is ~55% less productive than same-sized Rome, partly because far fewer workers can reach city centres by public transport; raising effective city size to European levels is worth ~£23.1bn a year. Yet the UK builds trams as bespoke one-offs: each city re-creates consenting, design and procurement from scratch, contributing to costs 2–8x French/Spanish levels (Britain Remade). CRSTS money exists; a delivery institution does not.

Agglomeration in second cities is the largest quantified regional growth lever the UK has. France built tram networks in 25+ cities through serial, standardised delivery; the UK's per-project approach guarantees high costs and decade-long timelines for every scheme.

A national light-rail delivery unit (standardised vehicle and design specifications, framework procurement, retained engineering teams) running a rolling multi-city construction pipeline on behalf of mayoral authorities.

// Build together: Counterparty: mayoral combined authorities jointly creating shared light-rail delivery unit, pooling CRSTS funds; no statute required.

Second-city agglomeration is the largest quantified regional lever (~£23bn/year) and a standardised delivery unit would cut costs, but no institution owns it and no date forces action.