Regional transport authorities and rail experts questioned on investment pipelines
The role of regional authorities in the planning of rail infrastructure improvements will be examined in an evidence session of the Transport Committee’s inquiry into Rail Investment Pipelines.
Meeting details
In this inquiry, the cross-party Committee is investigating how developing long-term, transparent and sequenced plans – or pipelines – could bring certainty and security to the ecosystem of companies that commission and deliver improvements to the UK’s railways.
The first panel of witnesses in this session includes representatives of the North East Combined Authority, Transport for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands Rail Executive. They will be asked to reflect on the level of influence they have in the planning of rail projects in their areas under the current regime of Network Rail’s five-year Control Periods and centrally-funded rail enhancement projects.
There may be questions about how projects in their patches have been helped or hindered by the level of autonomy they have and the funding streams available, as well as their ability to feed into the business cases for individual projects and to hold Network Rail to account over their decision making and delivery of projects.
In a second panel, experts including former Rail Minister Huw Merriman will be asked whether there could be greater long-term, strategic oversight in the way that rail projects are planned, and why the 2019 Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline has not been updated.
The Committee will be interested to hear witnesses’ views on whether Great British Railways could be better placed to plan rail infrastructure improvements in the future, how investment pipelines could be developed, and how to make better use of private sector investment.
The inquiry was launched last year in light of repeated calls from industry for government support, and following concerns for the future of Alstom’s rolling stock factory in Derby, which shone a light on the insecure ‘boom and bust’ nature of the rail supply industry.