From
BBC» http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36681121A campaign to electrify 29 miles of railway has seen Surrey County Council (SCC‡) and Great Western Railway (GWR▸ ) join forces to seek government funds for the project.
County Councillor Mike Goodman said the work on the North Downs Line, between Reading and Gatwick Airport, could cost between £80m and £140m.
He said GWR and SCC were working to build a case to make a bid for funds.
With both the local authority and the
TOC▸ asking for the same thing, Government is likely to listen and maybe, just maybe, even act! Network Rail will wait for someone to make a decision and let the moths out of the wallet before doing anything.
As to who does, and who pays, I think the truth may be somewhere in between OTC and EE. Local authorities have complete freedom to spend their money on whatever they see fit, so long as they only spend it on what the government wants them to spend it on. The whole financial structure is designed to give them enough money to do the absolute minimum they are required to do legally, less an amount to find in efficiency savings. "Give" money can also mean "leave" money from what they have collected in council tax, business rates, etc.
OTC quoted:
"LA's have at present funding from:
block funding for highways maintenance (capital);
block funding for small transport improvement schemes (capital);
major schemes (capital); and
Local Sustainable Transport Fund (capital and revenue).
From April 2015 onwards, 43.7% of this integrated transport block funding will be allocated instead to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs» ) as part of the Local Growth Fund (LGF) - which across England has a total value of £2 billion for 2015/16, to be shared across all 39 LEPs. This funding that will form part of the LGF, will not automatically be reinvested in these types of scheme and a clear case for investment will need to be made to each LEP."
This is a mixed blessing. Having four different jam jars full of cash for LAs to ask to dip into was never a good idea, particularly when the terms of reference for dipping your grubby hands into them seem to overlap. Away from the North Downs line, North Somerset District Council spent scarce time and money in making a bid for cash from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund to pay for the reopening of the Portishead line, only to be told that it was the wrong fund to ask for money from. It spent £100,000 separately on clearing the old track bed of vegetation in a bid to speed up the
GRIP▸ procedure, leading to no great progress (but some excellent photo opportunities for FT, N!). It also spent a further £50,000 on an appeal for a level crossing at Quays Avenue to allow its first choice of station, something I thought a good idea at the time. When the report came in, it was blindingly obvious that the idea never stood a chance for very sound safety reasons, so much so that I thought a short telephone conversation could have saved £50,000. There is (was if it really changes) too much cross-purpose involved, and no single avenue of decision making. That makes decisions very hard to get made!
As to LEPs, I am not a fan. This may be unfair of me, having direct experience only of the unaccountable, unelected, inefficient, inexpert self-selected and self-serving oligarchy that is the West of England LEP. It (strictly its predecessor, although membership didn't change much with the name) started with a modern light rail system sometime around the year 2000. It was unable to keep all 4 local authorities in the same church, let alone singing from the same hymn sheet, and a mere 15 years or so later is overseeing the building of a heavily value-engineered MetroBust. There is absolutely no connection between it and the local people, other than antagonism, not helped by a consultation process that would make that Kim Wrong 'Un blush. It is, however, reasonably good at knocking on open doors, signing other peoples' cheques, and claiming the credit for things that would have happened anyway.
It may be different in Surrey. In any case, someone has to start the ball rolling, and Surrey CC has done that by distracting Government's attention from London for a moment. I wonder if this scheme will fail for not being radical enough? Look at what is in place, what the problem is that needs solving, what else is in place around the area, and other potential changes in circumstances and you will see what I mean.
You currently have a line with electrification at both ends and in the middle. What is there is mainly third rail. The first question to answer is therefore whether it is a good idea to electrify the rest. Surrey CC and GWR are of the opinion that it certainly is, and Surrey CC are absolutely right to start blowing the trumpet. There is no possible way that they could raise the funding to actually pay for any of the work, though. Feasibility and cost-benefit studies are certainly within their grasp, but the cost of mobilising the Orange Army for as long as it would take is way beyond them. The work they have done suggests that there is a very strong economic case for electrifying the line completely.
Nationally, the long-term aspiration must be for a fully electrified railway. The question here then is what type. For all the reasons put forward by Electric Train, third rail is pretty much a non-starter. If it weren’t, it would provide the desired infill, but would preclude other options. In particular, it would put back the plans for the 25kV electrified goods line from south to north via Oxford, which seem to have been consigned to the backburner until the GWR electrification is finally sorted. Apropos which, very soon the Reading end of the line will be electrified at 25kV AC.
The incoming Prime Minister will have a very big decision to make on runway capacity in the south, within weeks of taking office. One possible outcome of that could be a second runway at Gatwick. That option, for reasons debated elsewhere in the coffee shop, has assumed a higher degree of probability over the past year. It would cost substantially less than a third runway at Heathrow, but would only make sense if done alongside vast improvements in connectivity. An upgraded 25kV AC line from Reading to Gatwick would connect the west, and indeed the north, to Gatwick in a similar way to the proposed right turn from the GWR ex Bristol, Oxford, and South Wales to Heathrow. Billhere has pointed out the limitations of signalling which would need a parallel upgrade. Meantime, the Gatwick Express line would need an upgrade, and 25kV AC seems the obvious starting point (maybe even all the way to Brighton, but let’s leave that). So with an enlarged Gatwick Airport and
GWEP▸ , we would have 25kV AC at both ends, making 3rd rail infill even less attractive.
Where does the money come from? Connecting a major airport and creating an electrified freight route elevates this to an infrastructure project of national strategic significance. The funding should be collected and spent centrally, with the local authorities stumping up for station and road upgrades to reflect the growth in fortunes locally. Gatwick have been at pains to point out that their scheme is significantly cheaper than Heathrow’s, as well as being less invasive and environmentally damaging. They could not be expected to pay for the upgrades to both lines themselves, but a sizeable contribution could be demanded. Government could advance the rest via
DfT» and Network rail as it does for any major infrastructure project. Overall, this would be a spend-to-save investment, and the new franchise that would cover the services would recognise this when setting the expected return to the exchequer. The costs would hopefully be more controlled than the GWEP costs have been, drawing on the lessons learned from that project.
As EE points out, none of this is not in
CP6▸ or even CP7. If Gatwick is given the extra runway, the line should be upgraded to 25kV with spanking new signalling to track the timescale of that development. As the track will probably need upgrading to accommodate higher speeds, we are looking at a virtual rebuild of the whole line. That will not be cheap, a whole lot more than the top-end £140 million suggested by Councillor Goodman, and will need the services of every trade on the railway. The obvious best way is pretty much a total shutdown for a few weeks – short-term pain for long-term gain. It is happening with the Severn Tunnel soon, so why not?
I shan’t hold my breath.
