UKPOL.CO.UK

Category: Transportation

  • Huw Merriman – 2023 Statement on the Proposed development of the A47 Wansford to Sutton

    Huw Merriman – 2023 Statement on the Proposed development of the A47 Wansford to Sutton

    The statement made by Huw Merriman, the Minister of State at the Department for Transport, in the House of Commons on 9 January 2023.

    I have been asked by my Right Honourable Friend, the Secretary of State, to make this written ministerial statement. This statement concerns the application made under the Planning Act 2008 for the proposed development by National Highways of the A47 Wansford to Sutton.

    Under section 107(1) of the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State must make his decision within 3 months of receipt of the examining authority’s report unless exercising the power under section 107(3) to extend the deadline and make a Statement to the House of Parliament announcing the new deadline. The Secretary of State received the examining authority’s report on the A47 Wansford to Sutton Development consent order application on 11 October 2022 and the current deadline is 11 January 2023.

    The deadline for the decision is to be extended to 17 February 2023 to allow for further consultation on a number of outstanding issues and to allow sufficient time for the analysis of responses to the consultation.

    The decision to set a new deadline is without prejudice to the decision on whether to grant development consent.

  • Alistair Morton – 2001 Speech to the British Chambers of Commerce National Conference

    Alistair Morton – 2001 Speech to the British Chambers of Commerce National Conference

    The speech made by Sir Alistair Morton, the then Chair of the Strategic Rail Authority, on 30 March 2001.

    The purpose of the SRA is easy to sum up in a few words. I established it at the request of John Prescott to pull together the elements of the private sector railway system we shall need in 2010 to complement our other transport systems. Recent events and your own experiences may make you believe that’s a useful objective. IT IS. I totally agree with Gus Macdonald when he said a few minutes ago that transport, particularly rail, investment is a major ongoing growth area.

    Let’s face it: for environmental reasons – both noise and emissions – and for reasons of landtake and casualties, we are close to the limit of what we can carry by road south of the M62 and in the populous areas north of it. That is a small area – we have to use it efficiently.

    We have a railway system, the SRA’s role is to get it fit for purpose, and to do that in a massive partnership between private enterprise and public funds.

    I took this job, which by the way is structured as a part-time job (my mistake!), because I believed – as the 20th Century ended – that Britain had finally emerged from the ice age of bloated state capitalism – the biggest nationalised industry sector outside the communist world – and that we had passed through the market fires of rampant Thatcherism and reached the saner, more temperate climate in which we could blend public and private capital in market-led structures under private sector management disciplines.

    I can give you a short list of the components necessary to deliver a good partnership between the sectors to develop our rail system.

    How are we doing? In reverse order, the last of those is down to Mike Grant and me and is Work in Progress; the next above is down to the Treasury, who are struggling. They keep suffering relapses into their old ways and resist the obviously necessary, but we are working on them. The first component is definitely still under development in the rail industry – people as well as assets.

  • Alastair Morton – 2001 Speech on the Future of UK Rail

    Alastair Morton – 2001 Speech on the Future of UK Rail

    The speech made by Alastair Morton, the then Chair of the Strategic Rail Authority, on 26 June 2001.

    Coming out of the Shadow – the SRA at the heart of the UK rail industry
    An IEA conference at the Liberal Club just after a minor political thunderstorm around the Labour Prime Minister’s declaration that he wants more private enterprise provision of public services is all very ecumenical. Getting a safer, better and bigger railway system in Britain will be the largest Public Private Partnership seen in Europe – if we do it – and there is no doubt cross-party support will greatly facilitate that massive PPP.

    The support was without question available until the latter part of last year. The SRA had made a good start in Shadow form and as at September 2000 had not yet irritated people by deferring publication of a Strategic Plan to tell everyone what to do.

    The Government had published a 10 Year Plan in July which seemed to contain a lot of good news for rail – £63 billion to be expended on capital and on supplementing farebox revenue over ten years.

    And then in mid-October came Hatfield; and as I said at the time the rail industry had “a nervous breakdown”. As I saw it, people inside the industry realised within hours and with horror the awful implications of the rupture between operators and maintenance signalled at Hatfield.

    But in truth our hopes for a PPP-driven new dawn for Britain’s more or less privatised railways were in trouble before Hatfield … at least three months before.

    In physical, everyday terms the advent of trouble was signalled by the deterioration in operating performance against the summer 2000 timetable. Demand and traffic had been rising for six years and now we were running out of room for growth. From June 2000 the ageing pint pot that is Britain’s railway system began to creak and leak under the steadily rising pressure of more trains on the timetable, carrying more passengers and freight per train, where possible at higher speeds. Trouble was developing, resilience was declining, infrastructure and service were deteriorating. At working level trouble showed through in the third quarter of last year.

    At the strategic level the timing was the same: trouble began in July, within days of the publication of the 10 Year Plan. Somehow the Whitehall machine made a serious mess of translating to the Treasury what the SSRA and the Rail Regulator were – very separately – telling them needed to be in that Plan for rail. It was a case of “a billion here, a billion there and soon you’re talking about real money” as Eurotunnel used to say to bankers.

    There was, however, a very important difference. The Regulator is independent: if he says Railtrack needs the money, the Treasury either provides more, or deducts the sum from what the SRA has got for other parts of its Plan, or someone persuades Railtrack to wait for it. The £29 billion earmarked for the SRA over 10 years, modestly supplemented by ministerial contingency or “back pocket” funds, was asked to take the strain – a strain that will not be supportable by any arithmetic if Railtrack does persuade Tom Winsor next year to add another couple of billion over the next five years to the £3.7 billion handed over since the 10 Year Plan in his announcements in late July and late October last year, and in early April this year.

    But Hatfield and its monstrous consequences made all that seem tomorrow’s problem, not last November’s priority. And let’s face it, any Strategic Plan handed down from the lofty heights of the SSRA before Hatfield would have been thrown into confusion by the events at and after Hatfield. Better to come back to those longer-term issues tomorrow, or after.

    Through the winter, the weather and Railtrack’s risk-averse management of risk dominated the railways. The formal establishment of the SRA arrived on 1 February, and we published a Strategic Agenda to launch the run-up to an autumn Plan – knowing that it meant confronting the longer-term issues pushed off to “tomorrow” by Hatfield.

    Well, tomorrow has arrived. You will recall that, like birdsong in the predawn in May, I heralded the dawn a few weeks before the election, in response to questioning from Gwyneth Dunwoody’s Select Committee on the House of Commons. I said the SRA’s funding must be “re-thought and re-shaped to fit the new circumstances.” Asked to clarify that, I said “We must have the money. The emperor has no clothes without money.” Reflect on that, Cap Gemini, as you tell us to provide robust strategic leadership.

    Since the third quarter of last year, since Hatfield, the issues have grown. I believe we must:

    • first, convince ourselves Britain’s rail industry is structured right and in a correctly balanced partnership with the public purse;
    • second, settle down to a generally accepted strategy for achieving the safer, better and bigger public service we want from rail; and
    • third, assure ourselves that it is reasonably possible to fund that strategy in all its phases from concepts to commissioning into service over the coming decade, and beyond.

    After more than two years’ hard labour at the SRA, I am better placed than most to know just how tall an order I have just placed before you and before the parties to that “biggest PPP in Europe”.

    There are voices in the industry saying we should restructure, whether geographically or vertically, because the present structure – built around Railtrack – cannot deliver. Offering us a choice of evils, they feel it will be more painful to struggle on with an under-performing Railtrack than to reorganise into smaller units. That is strong medicine. Conversely, some say change will bring more uncertainty than we can tolerate. I believe the SRA’s task, which is to provide strategic leadership, requires us to assess these choices for the longer term and also to guide Her Majesty’s Government towards a stable balance between the public purse and global capital markets which, together, will fund future improvement. The industry seeking our guidance – as Cap Gemini assures us it does – must work with us to consider solutions either confirming or modifying the existing structure of relationships. Yesterday the Rail Industry Group, the forum which brings the industry’s leading representatives together with the SRA, met to discuss just that. It was a sombre but positive discussion.

    Of course, in the short term there is no choice. Railtrack, its maintenance contractors and the train operators must climb out of the swamps of recent months and deliver a recovery.

    We need to settle our way forward but that is, I am afraid, complicated by the tendency for the public sector side of the proposed partnership to splinter into three streams of activity. Those three streams are:

    • substance, i.e. what the industry needs to do and pay for if it is to provide a safer, better and bigger public service;
    • process, which is the sequence and procedure under which officials in Whitehall are willing to examine propositions; and
    • presentation, which is what our political masters stress, hoping it accords better with public aspirations than the facts do.

    To illustrate this splintering via the saga of our funding: “Presentation” was Gus Macdonald reacting fiercely to my truthful response to the Select Committee that we need more funds. The facts are, of the £63 billion in his 10 year Plan the SRA’s £29 billion is now over-committed without any noteworthy enhancement programme and the private sector’s £34 billion sits under big question marks as the main player, Railtrack, shrinks.

    “Process” on our funding means being told to wait until June 2002 for the outcome of the next Spending Round negotiations between the Treasury and all the government departments. The Treasury’s attitude is understandable, it cannot make ad hoc deals, but ……

    That brings us to “Substance”, the need to fund the public sector side of the big rail partnership adequately to lever in very large sums from global capital markets to get on with improving Britain’s railways via a prioritised approach to a long list of franchises, studies and projects waiting to go ahead. Is it realistic to sit on our hands until next June?

    As I have said, the time until then can be spent by the train operators, Railtrack and their contractors in recovering to a pre-Hatfield level of performance, carrying more passengers and freight. But is that enough?

    The SRA is pretty well on top of listing what needs to be done on the ground:

    • We have published a freight strategy, building on my Strategic Agenda of March.
    • We have published in Birmingham, and then in Manchester, the conclusions of capacity studies undertaken by co-operative working groups, defining what needs to be done in those key hubs, both bottlenecks.
    • We will shortly publish the key elements of a strategy for London and the South East, timed to link up with Transport for London’s presentation.
    • We have taken two key franchises, for the East Coast and TransPennine routes, to a selection of preferred bidders, putting us in a position to design developments over two crucially important segments of the network.

    And so on. We can write a Strategic Plan in physical terms: but, without the funding we would just have to sit on it – unable to upgrade either franchised services or infrastructure.

    The central issues are first resources, of skills, management and funds, and – just as important – structure. A last word about the latter.

    I know two things from experience:

    • if we do not structure and fund things right from the outset, we shall fail; and
    • we must move forward steadily, with adequate funding over a period of years, realising that this is a long-term, costly and slow-moving programme that will serve Britain for decades.

    There is no quick fix. And, since our railways are in trouble, we shall not get it right by putting too much pressure on a structure already in trouble. I always preached that the faulty initial structuring between the parties to the Channel Tunnel project caused huge aggravation and cost over the life of that grand investment programme. We are in danger of doing that here.

    I have reflected on all this in the period since Hatfield, and particularly during March and April, as we put a further deal in place to ease the strain on Railtrack, the cracked principal structure supporting our industry. I concluded, very simply, that at 63 1/2 – as I am now – I cannot hope to see the necessary investment programme through.

    If that is the case, my successor should ideally be in place to “take ownership”, as the saying goes, of the structure of the industry, the balance of the PPP, the long-term funding agreed and thus the SRA’s Strategic Plan, once complete. And he or she should be young, fit, wily and ambitious enough to weld together the three streams of presentation, process and substance to serve the purpose of that Plan, appropriately funded. He or she must be here well before next June.

    Thus I told John Prescott before the election that I would discuss all this with the incoming Secretary of State responsible for Transport, but I planned to go at an appropriate time, no later than the end of my contract next March. In short, I will neither seek nor accept an extension of my contract.

    Meanwhile, I shall bend all my efforts to clarifying the component parts of the SRA’s strategy for passengers and freight at and around the strategic hubs of London, Birmingham and Manchester and in between them (and also the ports) on or near the strategic main routes. I will press forward the definition of the resources of skills and money needed and the structure preferred. I am first and last in the “substance” camp, which puts me sometimes at odds with the process and presentation chaps.

  • Richard Bowker – 2001 Speech to CFIT Conference

    Richard Bowker – 2001 Speech to CFIT Conference

    The speech made by Richard Bowker, the then Chair of the Strategic Rail Authority, at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in London on 3 December 2001.

    [Chaired by Sir Bob Reid]

    Good morning and thank you Bob for those kind words of introduction.

    David very kindly invited me to speak at this conference and suggested that I give a few practical and inspiring words! Well, you can all be the judge of that soon enough; I don’t intend to say a huge amount this morning but I did want to tell you a bit about my background, the issues we face as an industry and the personal perspective I intend to bring to solving them. In particular, I wanted to answer the most repeated questions asked of me over the past few weeks; Why? and What? Why did I agree to become executive chairman of the SRA and What am I going to do to get the railway working properly again? .

    So first of all, Why? Why leave a rather good job working with an exciting bunch of people, for one of the most iconoclastic brands and singular business leaders of the last 25 years? The answer is because I have a real vocation for Britain’s railways and for this job leading the Strategic Rail Authority. It’s based on an unshakeable belief that we can find our way back together as professionals to deliver once again a railway service of which we can be proud. So where does this belief come from?

    My father was and still is a senior figure in the bus industry having worked in it for over 40 years and through him I came to have a strong appreciation of the role integrated public transport can play in our lives. My grandfather was a master joiner with the London Midland and Scottish Railway in the 30s and 40s. Transport and the provision of a public service is in my blood and like many professional railwaymen and railwaywomen before me, the sense of being part of a living, breathing organism called the railway runs very deep. We forget sometimes, and certainly Railtrack forgot in a most spectacular way, that the railway exists to deliver one primary mission. That is, the provision of passenger and freight services for its customers, safely and reliably, day in, day out. I, like many of you, have watched with a mixture of sadness and disbelief as this once proud and competent railway organism has lost both its sense of purpose and raison d’etre as well as its self confidence and innate professionalism.

    To find the reason why this has happened, there are those who would urge upon us a re-examination of the underlying structural principles of privatisation and in particular at the number of different companies involved. Do all those in the industry, trying to make it work each day, share this view? What many will recall is the pain of the five years that the privatisation restructuring took. Five years that its architects now describe as “breakneck speed”. So to do it ‘properly’ might be, what, six or seven years?

    Whatever the strength of the argument, this is a prospect to consider with great care. Many more years of the current carry-on and there may not be a railway network surviving in the form we now know it. Some radical organisational changes I would not rule out, indeed some simplification initiatives I would definitely rule in, but as the primary focus of attention, no thank you.

    I am not saying that the industry relationships should escape careful forensic examination to see what works well and what doesn’t, and then make changes as necessary. Indeed the administration of Railtrack facilitates that very well. But to understand why we have a problem – and believe me we do – I believe we need to concentrate effort elsewhere.

    Where we need to focus first is on people and in particular, on management. People make businesses work and work well. Its not contracts, it’s not regulation and it’s not the complexity and detail of financing agreements that determine performance, it’s people. This is where we must start.

    It was Railtrack’s senior management that failed it for example. They didn’t focus on understanding their assets nor on looking after their customers, two fundamental maxims for success. Instead they focused on inflating the value of the Regulated Asset Base with no real incentive to deliver projects to a reasonable cost as a consequence, thereby increasing their rate of growth in shareholder value. They forgot that this needed to be done whilst also delivering their public law duty as the licence holder and therefore steward, not unassailable owner in perpetuity, of a very precious national asset. They outsourced maintenance, nailing suppliers to thin margin contracts and then failed to manage them effectively. In setting up this chain of command they failed to understand what it was that actually delivered a reliable railway; supervisors, line managers, the ‘black macs‘ and ‘sergeant majors‘ as Chris Green and others have called them. Railtrack today is still full of dedicated men and women, hugely professional in all they do, but the management of the company let them down and badly.

    But it doesn’t have to be like this. There is no need why we should put up any longer with this inadequate leadership in our industry.

    Stability day to day

    First we must restore a sense of stability and belief back into the running of the day-to- day railway. Rediscover our self-confidence, our pride in the job, our pursuit of excellence in all we day. To do this, we need to bring in new blood into the senior ranks of some of the key players in the industry. In Railtrack’s successor for example we need people who understand engineering, asset management, production and industrial processes, quality assurance, supply chain management and logistics technology. They exist in other industries; the oil and gas extraction sector, the hi-tech industrial processes sector and in the motor industry to name a few.

    Let me give you an example. Twenty five years ago it was still possible to buy a truly terrible motor car, frequently (unfortunately) made in Britain! But now, whilst you can buy a cheap car, an economical car, a sports car and any one of hundreds of people carriers, you cannot really buy a bad car. The motor industry as a whole has raised its game, got its act together, sorted the processes and put engineering quality at the heart of everything. It is no surprise to me that Ian McAllister has been asked to put together the CLG bid for the successor to Railtrack. Ford is a company that rediscovered the need to allow its engineers to design cars such as the Mondeo and Focus, not its accountants, with the consequence that they have built good quality cars that sell well. And yes, they’ve succeeded with the prestige brands too, Jaguar and Land Rover. We need more Ian McAllisters and fast. They exist and they will cost money but the payback will be both immediate and long lasting. At the same time we must look after the railway knowledge that still exists in Railtrack and other companies. We need to nurture it, empower it, allow managers to manage and railway people to do what they do best but within a framework set by a competent and focused leadership.

    The Strategic Rail Authority will play a full and active part in this process. In general terms, I shall use every opportunity made available to me to encourage and cajole anyone and everyone who has a part to play in delivering a safe, reliable day to day railway. Specifically, I intend to release the creative talent that exists in the SRA so that we have a proactive organisation, one which energises, and helps establish a common sense of customer focus. We will win the respect of the travelling public and of the freight/logistics operators. The SRA has substantial powers and I shall not hesitate to use them to ensure the public interest is served. We have to offer value for money. I am determined to build constructive partnerships with Train Operating and Freight Operating Companies to achieve this. The door is open and the phones are manned. Please come and see us, talk to us, engage with us. We can all do so much simply by focusing on the job in hand, acting decisively and implementing professionally.

    Over the coming weeks and months there will be progress on a number of fronts. I know there has been frustration, and I am determined to resolve blockages. We will demonstrate that we are an action oriented Authority, not afraid to ask tough questions, set tough agendas and make tough decisions when required.

    Rediscovering Planning

    The second thing we must do is to rediscover the practice of planning. This is not just for the long term. Its absence is what so often undermines what has to be done on a day by day and week by week basis and we need to get better at it. The first step will be to launch the Strategic Plan in January. I’m sorry David that this conference was designed to coincide with the launch of the Plan. I took the decision to delay its release but the decision was taken for good reasons. A huge amount of work has gone into the Strategic Plan which, once funded and committed to by Government, and we’re nearly there, will enable the rail industry for the first time to plan the future with a degree of confidence and clarity from the operational companies through to the infrastructure businesses and the supply sector. I delayed it because I felt it needed to set a clearer vision for the future and this it will now do. It will be launched on January 14th 2002 (please put the date in your diary) and will I believe be a huge step forward in restoring a sense of direction to the industry. However, planning is not a static exercise, it’s a way of working. While it is the SRA’s plan, of course it is for the whole industry to use And yes it is challenging to develop plans which can provide direction for a large and complex industry, but don’t think that we’re alone, as an industry sector with such a challenge. We will review it and update it to ensure we remain on track to deliver the bigger, better and safer railway outlined in the Ten Year Transport Plan.

    I know there has been a worry about the amount of taxpayers’ money set aside in the 10 year transport plan for railways, a worry that this isn’t enough. Well, let me say this. Continuing Treasury and tax-payer support depends on this industry performing. Before arguing we haven’t enough (and it may well turn out that’s correct), let’s acknowledge that we have the kind of long term financial support from this Government that (say) previous BR chairmen could only dream about. What we don’t have is the performance to match. So it’s clear where the real emphasis must lie. We have to deliver a better performing railway to stand a chance. You can count on me to argue the case for funding increases, but you the railway industry will have to create a stronger bargaining hand.

    One of the problems is that no-one has in my opinion yet sat down and produced an irrefutable, soundly argued, analytically robust and tested integrated plan that demonstrates the point. So we need a planning framework that takes all the inputs and then examines all the possible relationships to ensure that the outputs are optimised for a given level of input. The key relationships between renewals, upgrades and enhancements compared to management and optimisation of the service plans of train and freight operating companies has never been properly understood because the SRA and ORR have never sat down together with that single objective in mind. That is about to change forever. Tom Winsor and I have agreed to bring our two senior teams together to create a process designed to model these relationships in a transparent manner so that we can see a true holistic model of the investment need of the railway.

    A wise procurement chum of mine once said ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. So has it been with investment planning on the railway. The SRA will play a full part in the forthcoming Spending Review and we will champion the railway cause to the fullest extent. But we shall do it armed with proper and robust analysis. We stand far more chance of winning if we are properly prepared.

    I’ve mentioned Tom Winsor and the ORR so perhaps a little more on relationships is useful. One of the most unedifying sights of the last few years (and ultimately one of the most destructive) has been the continual bickering and backstabbing process carried out by many sectors of the industry on a regular and very public basis. That must also be consigned to history. This conference has been organised by the Commission for Integrated Transport. What hope do we have for that if we can’t even behave as integrated industry ourselves. I have known Tom for some years and whilst we do not always agree, we have professional and mutual respect for each other, have our debates in private, and then get on with the job. I expect everyone else in the railway industry to do the same.

    Conclusion

    In summary therefore we must do these two things. First, restore stability to the railway and confidence that we can do the job. Everyone must play their full part and the SRA will lead where required and play its full and proactive part. Second, put in place a planning framework which will for the first time enable us to have complete transparency of the costs, benefits, risks and funding opportunities for the railway.

    My vision is of a railway for which people are proud to work, in which customers can have confidence is professionally managed and can deliver a safe, reliable and value for money service and in which investors, including Government, wish to invest. We do have a Government which for the first time I can remember has a bigger and better railway as a stated and quantified policy objective. Lets not let the chance pass us by. We can do this; we have the people and the tools, if we have the vision and desire, we can achieve anything. Lets go for it.

    Thank you.

  • Richard Bowker – 2001 Speech to the RPC Network

    Richard Bowker – 2001 Speech to the RPC Network

    The speech made by Richard Bowker, the then Chair of the Strategic Rail Authority, on 5 December 2001.

    Introduction

    ….thank you Stewart for those kind remarks. Congratulations too on organising this conference at the start of my third day in the job. As the date was set some two months before I accepted the post, you get a high score for strategic planning!

    As you can see from the title of this session, I believe it is time that the SRA rose up to the challenge facing the industry in general. Specifically, it is time to lead.

    So, first of all, why did I take on this huge and challenging task, and leave behind a good job in order to do it? The answer is because I have a real vocation for Britain’s railways and for this job leading the Strategic Rail Authority. It’s based on an unshakeable belief that the industry can find its way back together as professionals to deliver once again a railway service of which we can be proud.

    I reckon many of you in this room this morning share something of the same belief. Why else would you devote such a huge amount of time to the work of the Committees, well beyond the hours expected in many cases? The railway generates strong views and attachments and this is as much for the users as well as the railwaymen and women who serve them.

    So, let me start by talking about the state and future of the railway, and then move on to the key role of the RPC network in delivering the strategy.

    The Railway

    Looking at the ‘doom and gloom’ headlines of the press day by day, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the railway is delivering each day, carrying a third more passengers than five years ago, and 40% more freight.

    Everyday 18,600 trains are run (21% more than five years ago). Every day 2.8 million passengers are carried, and 480,000 people are safely delivered to Central London between 07.00 and 10.00.

    The results of the last five year’s planning are starting to be delivered. New trains are arriving. The c2c fleet has been transformed. As of today, nearly 30 Voyagers are operating, bringing new standards of quality to cross country services… and last week, the first of the Pendolino trains were delivered for use on the West Coast Main line. They begin driver training very soon. The freight fleet has been transformed with over 300 new locomotives and 2,500 new wagons – the first major investment in a generation.

    Yesterday, I was in Edinburgh, to mark the start of work on the Crossrail project – part funded by the SRA with an RPP grant. Tomorrow, with Stephen Byers and Ken Livingstone we start work on the East London line extension. On Friday, I will be announcing extension of the RPP fund, together with new guidance for users, and we will soon be able to set out details of the refranchising programme.

    And in January, on the 14th to be precise, we launch the Strategic Plan, the first blueprint for a generation on how we are going to plan and deliver a better railway in line with the Government’s Ten Transport Plan.

    I find it frustrating that we have not got these messages across. I am not suggesting everything in the garden is rosy. It is not and I shall return to that in due course. But there are some great things to celebrate. Privatisation has brought some tremendous benefits in new equipment and services, new technology and new investment. I say this because it is all too easy to lose sight of this amongst the tremendous issues and challenges that we face both in the short and longer term.

    So what of the future?

    In my view, the latent demand for rail services will continue to drive rail usage towards the growth targets the Government set out in their Ten Year Plan. Economic growth brings with it an increasing demand for transport. Trunk road and motorway congestion is not likely to reduce. Parking constraints are not going to get easier. Indeed, a number of cities – including London – plan to introduce congestion charging, which if it goes ahead will increase pressure on rail demand.

    Can the railway cope?

    It has to. We have to find ways of making it capable of meeting the demand. The road system cannot handle the growth in demand nor should it be have to do so. Apart from this, any significant new road building could take ten years or more to achieve. We have to equip the railway to play a bigger role in meeting Britain’s transport needs. But that is a defensive position to take in isolation. I do not want to see a railway simply doing its best to play “catch up”. The railway is moving a third more passengers than at privatisation and I think that’s fantastic! Remember all the statistics of the 1980s? Ridership down, freight down, investment down. That’s been turned on its head. What we have to do now is stimulate more demand by making rail the mode of choice where it can be, and make it so attractive and welcoming a transport proposition, that people actually positively switch to rail and feel good about doing so.

    Things are not good enough at the moment. Performance is very ragged, and the combined effects of September 11 and the collapse of Railtrack have left uncertainty for passengers, for train operators and for rail staff, who also feel the brunt of the daily onslaught in the media. We can’t just issue vague platitudes about ‘things will get better’. We need to get on with practical things and now.

    So, where do we start?

    First we must restore a sense of stability and belief back into the running of the day-to- day railway. The tremendous railwaymen and women that are the bedrock of this industry have to rediscover self-confidence, pride in the job, pursuit of excellence in all they do. To do this, we need to bring in new blood into the senior ranks of some of the key players in the industry to lead. In Railtrack’s successor for example we need people who understand engineering, asset management, production and industrial processes, quality assurance, supply chain management and logistics technology. They exist in other industries And we should be actively seeking to attract them to the railways.

    We need to nurture our staff, empower them, allow managers to manage and railway people to do what they do best but within a framework set by a competent and focused leadership.

    The Strategic Rail Authority will play a full and active part in this process and take a lead. In general terms, I shall use every opportunity made available to me to encourage and cajole anyone and everyone who has a part to play in delivering a safe, reliable day to day railway. Specifically, I intend to develop the potential of the SRA, to energise it and help establish a common sense of customer focus. We will win the respect of the travelling public and of the freight/logistics operators and I am determined to build constructive partnerships with Rail Companies and their users to achieve this.

    The RPC network has a key role to play here – particularly on restoring confidence. You can help us identify the problem areas from your local knowledge and your discussions with TOCs. You can help rebuild public confidence in the comments you make to the local media – particularly as performance starts to turn the corner – and you are uniquely placed to highlight best practice and to encourage its spread around the network.

    So what are we going to do to rebuild confidence? Prioritisation has had a terrible press as a word. Most people jump to the conclusion that it means ‘cutback to what can be afforded’. It does not. It means focusing on the things that maximise benefits for users within all the relevant constraints. In the railway industry, this means skills and technical resources as much as money. For example, the next two years will see Railtrack completing full implementation of TPWS, essential signalling renewals and the signalling for the West Coast upgrade. It is a period during which some key signalling resources are going to be in limited supply.

    Focusing on delivery means some hard choices in the short term – replacing the “wish list” with the priority list for passengers but, I am adamant the longer term is not forgotten, indeed, quite the opposite. I am determined that the projects that will define our future – many of which may not come to fruition until long after my term as Chairman of the SRA is over – are developed and planned now. This is a long lead time industry and many of the problems we face today are a direct consequence of short term investment thinking in the past. We will not repeat that mistake.

    I am also committed to making sure we do not lose sight of smaller things that can be done quite quickly to really improve the quality of the overall travel experience. Stewart and I discussed recently the need to really look at our station infrastructure. Stations are the gateway to the service, the first point of interaction between the passenger and the railway network. And let’s face it, some of them are truly dire. That is why we are so keen to develop the RPP programme and make it easier and quicker to access. Many schemes have been successfully implemented but I am keen to see them happen more quickly in the future.

    In summary, you will see how all of this fits together when we publish the Strategic Plan.

    The team at the SRA has done a very thorough job in analysing the issues and producing a plan which deals with them, notwithstanding the uncertainties that face our industry today. Whilst assumptions have to be made – they do in all Strategic Plans – it will set a clearer vision for the future than has existed before. However, planning is not a static exercise, it’s a way of working. While it is the SRA’s plan, of course it is for the whole industry to use. I know the Council has been involved as a partner in the preparation of the plan, and I am grateful for the input from Stewart and his team.

    I said on Monday, (my first day) that the popular belief is that we need more money than was contemplated in the Ten Year Plan in order to deliver a long term sustainable railway network. The problem is, no-one has yet sat down and produced an irrefutable, soundly argued, analytically robust and tested integrated plan that demonstrates the point. So we need a planning framework that takes all the inputs and then examines all the possible relationships to ensure that the outputs are optimised for a given level of input. The key relationships between renewals, upgrades and enhancements compared to management and optimisation of the service plans of train and freight operating companies has never been properly understood because the SRA and ORR have never sat down together with that single objective in mind. That, however, is about to change. Tom Winsor and I have agreed to bring our two senior teams together to create a process designed to model these relationships in a transparent manner so that we can see a true holistic model of the investment need of the railway. We may be separate organisations but we will show by example that we can really deliver when we work together. This will revolutionise the way in which we undertake investment planning in the future.

    The RPC Network

    I have seen how the RPC network has been transformed over the last eighteen months, with a bigger remit and bigger responsibilities – matched by a bigger budget! The working relationship with the SRA and the rest of the rail industry has become more proactive, with more practical suggestions for improvement, rather than acting simply as a complaints forum.

    This is an important role for the network, as is the strong regional focus of the Committees. For us as an organisation based in London, strong, regional imput is essential. Links between the Committees and regional and local Government are important, and I would like to see this virtuous circle completed, building on the strong links already established between the SRA and Scotland, Wales and the English Regions.

    Consultation is a word that is often used but abused. My concept is simpler – let’s talk to each other. If a week goes by and you haven’t talked to or heard from the Rail Development Manager or one of Chris Austin’s team, then pick up the phone and ask “What’s new”? I know Stewart and Anthony will do the same to me! Formal consultation may be needed for things like PSR changes, but it should be no substitute for regular dialogue. I can promise you, there will be plenty to talk about over the next few months!

    Given that our goals are the same – providing a better service for passengers (and freight customers) and encouraging development of the railway, this relationship needs to evolve into a partnership.

    Conclusion

    My vision is of a railway for which people are proud to work, in which customers can have confidence, is professionally managed and can deliver a safe, reliable and value for money service and in which investors, including Government, wish to invest. We do have a Government which for the first time I can remember has a bigger and better railway as a stated and quantified policy objective. Lets not let the chance pass us by. I believe we can do this; we have the people and the tools, if we have the vision and desire, and we work together, we can achieve anything.

  • Richard Bowker – 2001 Speech to Rail Freight Group

    Richard Bowker – 2001 Speech to Rail Freight Group

    The speech made by Richard Bowker, the Chair of the Strategic Rail Authority, on 11 December 2001.

    Introductory Remarks

    It’s a great pleasure to be here on my 7th working day as Chairman of the SRA. I was keen to get stuck in to freight early on but I never imagined I would meet so many of you so quickly. This is a truly impressive turnout.

    You all know where I’ve come from and so you will not be surprised that I have a steep learning curve to climb when it comes to freight. I am told that the rail freight industry is a hard nosed and commercial – that’s fine – that’s what I’m used to. I don’t expect you to base your businesses and investments on promises; you want to see results and will judge the SRA on delivery. I intend to deliver for freight.

    Industry Wide Issues

    Right now there are huge issues to address for the whole railway. We must get this right for the whole railway – Freight operators as well as the infrastructure provider and passenger TOCs. If we don’t there’s no future for any of us.

    Everyone is worried about what the successor to Railtrack should look like and how we should get there. But we must not be distracted. We must concentrate in these next few months on making what we have today work better, providing a period of stability focussing on the people who make the industry work and working better together. I see it as a key part of my role to ensure this happens and I’ve already started by seeking a better relationship between the SRA and the rest of Government. The SRA and the ORR senior teams are about to sit down together for the first time with the objective of understanding the key relationships between renewals, upgrades and enhancements and the management and optimisation of the service plans of passenger and freight operating companies.

    The Strategic Rail Authority is ready to play a full and active part and take a lead. I shall use every opportunity available to me to encourage and cajole anyone and everyone who has a part to play in delivering a safe reliable day to day railway. I intend to develop the potential of the SRA, to energise it and help establish a common sense of customer focus. We will win the respect of the travelling public and the freight and logistics operators and I am determined to build constructive relationships with Rail Companies and their users to achieve this.

    Freight issues

    I want to build a productive partnership with you in the Rail Freight industry. For starters you can rest assured that I have heard and understand your fears about ‘vertical integration’. All I ask of you is that you recognise we must not ignore the debate on vertical integration but must engage in it – you have a crucial role to play.

    I know that freight flows change more frequently than the passenger timetable sometimes on a week-by-week basis, I know that freight moves across the network in an entirely different way from the main passenger movements often crossing several ‘zones’. I know that 40% of all rail freight today uses the West Coast Main Line for part of its journey. And I know that not all rail freight is the same. Different markets have different needs – coal is different from aggregates, is different from automotive, is different from deep-sea containers, is different from mail. Together we must serve them all if we are to achieve our target 80% growth.

    This means a network fit for purpose as well as the targeted support for the development of new services and facilities set out in our Freight Strategy. I know we must invest government money in capacity for freight and a higher loading gauge for the new generation of containers as well as supporting improvements in efficiency by reducing journey times and increasing train lengths. Getting the Railtrack question right is key to this – whatever organisation succeeds Railtrack must facilitate not block enhancement and we must be able to develop the network at reasonable cost. The SRA will take a lead in the future on this all-important upgrade enhancement work.

    It is two and a half years since the first appointment was made to the SRA freight team. A lot has been achieved in that time from a standing start but we have yet to see any actual work start on the network. I expect to put this right next year and, building on the development and appraisal work undertaken by the team already, make a start on one of our major projects and I hope more than one of our smaller schemes.

    Other Priorities for the next 12 months

    So what are our other priorities for the next 12 months for freight?

    Top of the list has to be the issue of would-be immigrants and the disruption of Channel Tunnel freight services. This was top of my agenda even before I formally took up my post and I have already discussed it a number of times with Ministers. We are doing everything we can to put pressure on at home and in France to resolve the issue through physical security measures, additional security staff or operational solutions. We are exploring whether or not we can provide a financial contribution towards ensuring that the fence around Frethun Yard is adequate. Further meetings are planned this side of Christmas and early in the New Year with SNCF and others. It would be a desperately depressing start to my time as Chairman of the SRA if in the first month some of the dire consequences that are threatened as a result of this situation were to come to pass. I sincerely hope that a resolution early in the New Year will be soon enough.

    On a more positive note I hope the Freight Industry will be pleased when the Strategic Plan is published on 14 January to see that the Freight Strategy as previously set out remains a key part of it and that we expect to provide sufficient money for its implementation out of our resources. You will, I am sure, be looking for an update on our progress with the Freight Strategy and I expect the team to produce this around the anniversary of the publication of the Strategy in May.

    As well as reporting on the timetable for improvements to the network we should be in a position to announce the timetable for introduction of the ‘Company neutral revenue support scheme’ we have been working on and new grant rates for the removal of heavy lorries from our congested roads.

    Next year will see the publication for consultation of the first of our Regional Freight Strategies pulling together freight flows, network improvements, interchange requirements and land resources into a clear framework to support the Regional planning process. We will work jointly with TfL on a rail freight strategy for London.

    For me personally the main imperative is to get to know you and understand your businesses and to this end I am asking the team to set up a number of visits for me during the next year to see rail freight working at first hand and to provide an opportunity to hear about your concerns. I want to ride a mail train and see the Princess Royal Distribution Centre, I want to visit the port of Felixstowe, I want to visit EWS’s Doncaster Customer service Centre and ride the heavily used Doncaster – Immingham route. I also need to see quarries and depots, intermodal terminals, and meet with the Freightliner, DRS and GB Railfreight. I must get to know freight customers and would-be customers and understand them as well as rail passengers.

    Closing remarks

    I still have a lot to learn about freight but I already know how important it is and that I want to achieve that target. I recognise and respect the fact that the vast majority of freight runs without subsidy, I understand that in the absence of a franchise structure we must become willing partners in our joint endeavour, I admire the way the freight industry has been prepared to invest – close to a billion pounds since privatisation – and to argue its case in front of the Regulator for lower access charges. I relish the prospect of working together and getting to know you better.

    My vision is of a railway for which people are proud to work, in which customers can have confidence, is professionally managed and can deliver a safe, reliable and value for money service and in which investors, including Government, wish to invest. We do have a Government which for the first time I can remember has a bigger and better railway as a stated and quantified policy objective. Lets not let the chance pass us by. I believe we can do this; we have the people and the tools, if we have the vision and desire, and we work together, we can achieve anything.

    Thank you for inviting me – the new boy – to join you for your annual Christmas lunch, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

  • Richard Bowker – 2002 Speech to the Railway Forum Conference

    Richard Bowker – 2002 Speech to the Railway Forum Conference

    The speech made by Richard Bowker, the then Chairman and Chief Executive of the Strategic Rail Authority, on 2 July 2002.

    It is some seven months since I stepped up to the footplate as Chairman of the SRA. In that time, the SRA has published its Strategic Plan, secured some additional Government funding, appointed a new team to lead it, let the first 20 year franchise, (more deals are under development) and we have negotiated the basis of a stable future for the network operator to replace Railtrack.

    During this time too, we have taken stock, consulted extensively with the rail industry and stakeholders. We have listened and learned and shall shortly be launching consultation on a number of critical policy issues.

    But, time is not on our side. As an industry, we are in danger of losing the goodwill that is willing us to deliver. There is no value to anyone in us failing and the world is intrinsically on our side but we have to deliver some of the improvements that have been promised. That’s why this conference title is so appropriate and why Alistair also focused on getting on with the job in hand. Now, I know we know we have begun and we do have to get better about talking about it. There are many new trains on order or delivered. We have CTRL, TPWS and a whole raft of other projects and I know there is a vast amount going on behind the scenes that we can talk about shortly. But even some of these have not been without problems and we need to raise the game consistently and show what the railway can do when it puts its considerable collective skill and effort to delivery.

    Leadership

    I am determined we shall deliver the Government’s objectives for the railway, and to do this, I want first to look at one task that is set out very clearly in the Directions & Guidance to the SRA:

    2.1″The Authority is to provide leadership for the rail industry and ensure that the industry works co-operatively towards common goals.”

    This morning I shall be setting out some of the detail of the direction in which I intend to lead. But beware, it comes with a health warning attached. The destination is set, the route will be marked out and we shall not, repeat not be deflected from it and will not wait to pick up stragglers or argue with those who don’t agree with where we’re going.

    Role of the Public Sector

    When the railway was privatised, there was a view that over time subsidies would decline to be replaced by premia, centralised control of policy would be very limited, the innovative and entrepreneurial flair of the new private companies would create a dynamic and self sustaining market and what little interference did remain would be confined to ensuring that socially necessary service provisioning would be looked after. Admittedly, this was against a backdrop of a railway no-one expected to grow fast, if at all, but even so, isn’t it incredible how wrong we could have been? Looking back now I believe that the issue was not primarily structure. It was not even fragmentation (although both of these have clearly impacted) but rather a total lack of leadership and proper planning.

    The laissez faire model of the market is no more likely to work now than it did in 1996, indeed, I believe it is less likely to work now. The railway has in those intervening 6 or 7 years become more complex and constraints that did not apply then certainly do so now, perhaps most clearly in terms of capacity utilisation. Incentive regimes have not driven the expected behaviours and those who were brave enough to become involved in seeking to expand the capacity and capability of the network have found it an uphill struggle to secure the delivery of their contracts.

    Transport planning does not just “happen” – it requires a lead from the Public Sector, which has a special role in relation to railways, which I believe is now very clear. It is:

    (i) leadership – saying and then following through with the things that will never be universally popular for popularity is not synonymous with true leadership

    (ii) strategy – setting the strategy and a framework against which the industry can plan and develop. Strategy does not always mean long term – a strategy is defined as a plan and plans can be short, medium and long term

    (iii) specification – it is for the public sector to specify the outputs it wishes to buy and it is the SRA who fulfil this role in the railway industry

    (iv) funding – Public sector funding, slightly less than 50% of the annual total, comes from the SRA, either directly or indirectly

    Leadership does not mean popularity. I did not take this job to be popular. I took it to make a difference, a lasting difference. So we will consult when necessary and then, in consultation with the policy makers in Government if appropriate, make decisions, tough decisions. According to one paper at the weekend I am simply spouting ‘robot management speak’. Well judge for yourselves at the end of this.

    The Growing Railway

    Back in February, I talked about the need for a new radicalism. By that, I did not mean a fundamental restructuring of the industry, but a change in the way we approach its management. Is that still a realistic view? Can we make what we have work or do we have to think radically to make any headway? Well, one of the most consistent messages I have received in the last 6 months is please, let us have stability. Stability of policy, stability of funding, stability of structure, stability of objective.

    Well I agree but the railway is growing, and growing strongly. Compared with six years ago, it has 20% more trains, a third more passengers and almost half as much freight again, despite the problems of Sangatte. But it is also six years older, and in too many areas too little has been spent on renewing and expanding it. You’ve heard all that but it is also true that this underlying strong growth potential is inevitably going to continue. Hatfield caused a shock, but the trends are upwards and are actually more marked on freight than passenger. Not only did rail freight grow by 8.8% last year – above the trend needed to meet the 80% target by 2010/11 – but market share has also grown, so that it now stands at almost 12%, compared with 8.5% seven years ago.

    The Prophets of Doom – and we have no shortage of them will always urge caution on the basis that growth will fall away, but such an approach is flawed and will mean that we will always be condemned to struggling with inadequate capacity. This is something I feel passionately about as it is clear that a number of factors are now combining to drive up demand for rail services, quite apart from the marketing efforts of the industry.

    • The road system cannot cope with the growth in demand – either for passenger travel or freight transport
    • Town and cities are looking to the railway to help solve their congestion problems and some are prepared to back this with congestion charging or funding park and ride schemes.
    • The logistics industry is increasingly looking to rail for trunk haul movements to combat road congestion and the impact of the EU Working Time Directive
    • The South East’s airports are at capacity, certainly in the medium term, and the marginal cost of extra domestic flights to London will be high.
    • All of this is set against a Government Ten Year Transport Plan with growth as a key factor.

    So, OK for stability, but growth will come. And it has proved incredibly difficult to progress major upgrade schemes, partly through the institutional inertia that comes with a leaderless and fragmented structure, partly through escalating costs, and partly through the time taken to plan, secure consents and build new infrastructure.

    That is starting to change. Leeds First has provided more capacity, and the doubling of Chiltern’s main line north of Bicester is almost complete, albeit at a cost to bring tears to ours eyes, more of which later, but we have to recognise that, even with leadership and funding from the SRA, and with greater industry cooperation, there are no “quick fixes” when it comes to big capacity increases. If anyone was in any doubt on this, the history of the West Coast upgrade will convince them!

    Capacity

    Returning therefore to the theme of planning, the conclusion from this is that in the short to medium term, we have to be much better at making use of the capacity we have, while we are planning to increase it in the longer term.

    This gives added impetus to the Capacity Utilisation Policy that we are developing, and on which we will start consultation next month. From this we will develop individual route strategies which will also involve revisiting the Passenger Service Requirement as necessary.

    Over the last five years, timetables have grown piecemeal, with additional services being slotted in as individual promoters perceive a benefit, irrespective of whether it is abstractive overall, and the result is sub-optimal use of the available route capacity. It is now time to take a strategic look at the whole structure to see how we can make best use of the capacity that exists to provide a more reliable service, and in some cases, perhaps, a more frequent one.

    It also means some compromise in order to make the most of what we have got. On some routes, we may have to accept some variation in clock face departures of local trains to accommodate less frequent long distance or freight services. In other cases, we may have to look at a slightly slower long distance service to fit in with peak period stopping services and vice versa. We should not be afraid to question a few cherished principles to produce a solution that works for passengers or freight customers, and works reliably.

    This policy has to be driven by good railway operating and engineering principles – robust, practical and safe. It needs to align the railway’s priorities with those of its customers – freight as well as passenger. We know how to measure the benefits of train service provision at the margin, and we will apply a consistent methodology to underpin our choices.

    Capacity is linked to the other policy on which we will shortly start consultation – on fares. The structure and level of fares affect demand and the capacity requirement. Fares also provide income for investment. We need to make sure that the fares policy supports the Government objectives through a degree of direction and regulation, but leaves some commercial freedom for train operators to do what they are good at – filling empty seats.

    There are a whole series of other areas where our new approach to planning will be profoundly felt and welcomed and although I haven’t gone through them in detail here they include our relationships with Devolved Government, Regional and Local Development Agencies and Authorities and PTAs and PTEs,

    Costs

    But whilst we can have the most sophisticated and joined up planning in the world, we have to be able to afford what we want to buy. One thing which we have to tackle together is the steady rise in the real cost of operating the railway. Not just on capital projects, but on running costs as well. These costs are racing ahead and have to be curbed. There are many contributing factors.

    • Wage costs – particularly when coupled with a 35 hour week – are racing ahead of inflation.
    • Safety standards are ratcheting up, and these have to be paid for. So does meeting the requirements of Disability Discrimination Act, and the EU directives on interoperability.
    • Project Costs – Does it really cost the kind of £ per mile figures we are currently seeing for major projects. I leave you to answer that yourself
    • Investment has to be paid for through access or leasing charges. Transaction costs and consultancy costs are high.
    • Reliability – in terms of extra trains or staff – has to be paid for.

    Now many of these headings have some justification but taken together, they add to a considerable burden. Over the next few months and years we have to address these spiralling upward costs, or we risk making the full development of the railway unaffordable.

    Some of these costs are a “pass-through” to the SRA which on the face of it might seem alright – but its not! Our budget is limited and we have to manage it at an aggregate level. So unless we can get a grip on them, rising costs could choke off investment at the margin, and restrict our ability to respond to local plans. For all its faults, BR did apply relentless downward pressure on costs which led to some innovative ideas like radio signalling, or which, like the HST, generated big increases in revenue. We must do the same.

    There must be cheaper ways of running the rural railway than meeting the same stringent standards as on high speed lines. Maybe some suburban routes around the country could be better run as light rail than as they are now. Manchester Metrolink now carries as many passengers as the whole of the rest of the Greater Manchester suburban network. There must be better ways of carrying out engineering work than the present hopelessly inefficient possessions regime. Productive driving time still occupies, on average, less than half a shift for train drivers.

    Network Review

    Pulling all this together –

    • Capacity Utilisation Policy
    • Route utilisation strategies
    • PSR review
    • Fares Policy
    • Planning in general, and
    • The need to get a grip on costs,

    amounts to a pretty fundamental review to enable us to be very clear about what we want to buy. We will be setting this out progressively over the coming months and longer and the conclusions will not please everyone.

    There will be many commercial deals to be done which do not call on SRA support, and these will be welcome, but here too we need to be involved when it comes to the effect on network capacity utilization and on other operators.

    The SRA Team

    I recognize that to deliver this leadership and work programme requires a resource at the SRA of the highest calibre and I am delighted to say that the team is now complete and in place bar one which I shall come back to shortly. Chief Operating Officer (Nick Newton), Managing Director (Strategic Planning) (Jim Steer) and Managing Director (Finance & Commercial) (Doug Sutherland) are now all in place. Together with Julia Clarke (Freight), Chris Austin (Corporate Affairs) and Ceri Evans (Media), we are very much open for business and, with the major milestone reached last week on Network Rail, we can begin to move forward on all aspects of our work programme.

    That just leaves one key vacancy, for a Technical Director. I have recently taken the view that such is the scale of the agenda with respect to ERTMS, standards, European matters (notably Interoperability) and so on, that someone at the SRA must take an industry lead on this. We will shortly be starting the recruitment process.

    Conclusion

    I would like to rewind to that extract from the Directions and Guidance again. The second part of it referred to working co-operatively towards common goals. Working together is essential if we are to deliver the railway we truly need and we are capable of doing it, of that I have no doubt. Over the last few months in particular, there has been clear evidence that it is happening, not least of all when we have been dealing with difficult issues.

    We are now moving to a clearer position in the railway industry where responsibility and accountability can start to be clearly understood. It is certainly the case that the role of providing leadership, of setting the strategy, of specifying the outputs and determining the value for money case for injecting public money rests with the SRA. It’s a challenge we’re up for. But it is nothing without a strong and vibrant private sector, willing to take risk because the opportunities, the strategy and the risks and rewards are clear. The SRA and the ORR with our separate but complementary jurisdictions are creating that framework. Together with all of you, we need to “Get on With It”.

    Thank you.

  • Strategic Rail Authority – 2002 Franchising Policy Statement

    Strategic Rail Authority – 2002 Franchising Policy Statement

    The policy statement document issued by the Strategic Rail Authority on 1 November 2002.

    Text of document (in .pdf format)

  • Ben Price – 2023 Interview on the Norwich Western Link

    Ben Price – 2023 Interview on the Norwich Western Link

    The interview with Ben Price, the Leader of the Green Party group at Norfolk County Council, on 2 January 2023.

    (i) Do you agree with the council’s suggestion that the road is essential for economic growth or do you feel that there are alternatives? What would the Green Party’s solution be to improving transport links in the county and also ensuring that there is economic growth?

    The Green party does not agree with the idea that building this road will create the sustainable economic growth that Norfolk is crying out for. We need to transition our local economy to create the jobs and industry of tomorrow. Norfolk can be a world leader in renewable energy and clean hydrogen production, and the eco house building and retrofitting industries, if only there was the vision and strength of character in council leaders and local MP’s to seize the opportunity.

    (ii) Is the suggested need for the Norwich Western Link simply a legacy of an inadequate public transport system in the county?

    Norfolk has been largely ignored by Westminster. Having Conservative MPs dominate the region clearly hasn’t helped change that approach. The underfunding and systematic dismantling of a national public transport system by central government is felt more acutely here in this large rural county, than most other places across England. All the scientific research is pointing towards a change in how people live and work. How we travel, and why we travel is changing. The rate of change has only increased since the Covid pandemic. Most countries that are currently experiencing economic growth understand that you need to build and maintain a good, cheap and reliable public transport system, that integrates rail, bus and bike seamlessly. Public transport underpins sustainable economic growth and transition. The Western Link is an expensive and highly damaging folly. It’s yesterday’s solution, and will not solve the issues of tomorrow.

    (iii) Do you think a tipping point has been reached where the building of new roads is difficult to justify given the push for Government to take increasingly environmentally conscious decisions?

    Looking at the scientific evidence, the tipping point was some years ago. The UK Government is only now slowly catching up. Under the new carbon neutrality commitments, road building is absolutely prohibitive. We need to reduce the damage to the natural environment. You can’t just plant trees to excuse large carbon generating projects. Going forward with projects like The Western Link, with the knowledge of the damage it will cause, and understanding the commitments we have made to reducing carbon, can only be described as ecocide. These types of projects need to be challenged in court, and there is no way that they can be reasonably justified. History will judge the actions of today.

  • First Bus Eastern Countries – 2019 Letter of Support for the Norwich Western Link

    First Bus Eastern Countries – 2019 Letter of Support for the Norwich Western Link

    The letter sent by First Bus in Norfolk to Norfolk County Council on 17 May 2019.

    Dear Sirs,

    RE: Proposed Norwich Western Link

    As the main public transport provider in Norwich, we are acutely aware of the impact that traffic congestion has on our services and the lives of our passengers. With the planned introduction of thousands of new homes, not only in the Greater Norwich area, but specifically to the west of the city, this congestion is only going to get worse.

    A good public transport system is a key part of any thriving city and this is almost impossible to deliver if buses are stuck in traffic queues along with general traffic.

    The Broadland Northway has already delivered viable alternative routes for general traffic to traverse the city, instead of going directly through the centre and we have as a result, seen a reduction in congestion on some corridors.

    There is however, still a significant amount of traffic that uses Dereham Road, the outer ring road and many of the rural roads through Costessey, Drayton and Taverham along with its surrounding areas to travel between the A47 and the A1067 and beyond, to link with the Broadland Northway.

    The proposal to build a western link that would remove the need to either use key arterial routes in the city, or rat run through rural roads, therefore reducing congestion, is one that First East Counties would entirely support.

    Managing Director

    First Eastern Counties Buses.