If the new Chancellor wants to ‘level up’ UK rail, he needs to overcome five crunch points, writes Darren Caplan, Chief Executive of the Railway Industry Association.
In the Spring Budget, we have the chance to deliver a bigger and better rail sector, that can help bring investment to towns and communities across the UK. All eyes will be on the new Chancellor in the coming weeks, as the Spring Budget is due to be presented on 11 March. With the Government keen to ‘level up’ the UK, much speculation has been made about possible infrastructure announcements and a National Infrastructure Strategy is due to be published too.
We have already seen the Government deliver on rail policy – with the green light given to HS2 on 11 February. This was a welcome decision for the Railway Industry Association (RIA), and its 300 members who build, maintain and upgrade the UK rail network. HS2 will unlock capacity across the rail system, freeing up the current network for more trains, and spurring jobs, investment and economic growth.
However, aside from the positive decision on HS2, our railways face a number of challenges over the coming few years. In our submission to the Chancellor, RIA identified five ‘crunch points’ – potential barriers to building a bigger, better rail network by 2024. These cover the entire industry, and when put together, could pose a significant challenge to the sector’s ability to deliver.
The first ‘crunch point’ is renewing the network – the work that takes place to replace the rail infrastructure like-for-like. Renewals are funded in five yearly cycles known as Control Periods, which – since the system was established – have suffered from ‘boom and bust’ cycles, with big upswings and downturns in workload. This makes it harder for rail businesses to deliver, reducing investment and jobs and adding up to 30% to costs.
The second is rail enhancements, or upgrades to the existing network. The rail sector has suffered from little visibility of upcoming enhancements, but in October 2019 the Government published a list of projects following lobbying from RIA and the industry. The list, however, has very few construction ready schemes, meaning little will be delivered by 2024. We’d urge the Government to speed up a number of schemes, if it is serious about increasing capacity.