Question 2 – 24 Jul 2023: Community Rail budget cut

[whole diary]

[Red Squirrel]

How will a 25% cut in community rail budgets effect support of volunteer help across GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) stations and services?

[Mark Hopwood]

Nobody wants to see such reductions but we do have less money across the whole GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) business and its another example of the difficult decisions we are having to balance.

With careful planning, we are confident that we have been able to protect our valuable volunteer support – something we are extremely grateful for. We do still have a budget, for community rail, which we are privileged to receive. This reflects the excellent work that our volunteers and CRPs^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) achieve and is recognised by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about). Everyone in the rail industry is going to have to get used to doing more with less.

[grahame]

I find myself looking at Community Rail changes a few years back where the emphasis seemed to move more to "Community" and less "Rail"; when set up, community rail was all about getting bums on seats on lines where usage was - err -low.    And it was so successful that it was moved on to reaching the more difficult parts of society, "job done" if you will.  But now, postCovid, is there a case for an element of going back to the basics as well, pulling in more punters per pound invested?

[Mark Hopwood]

Quite possibly but we have to recognise there is an expectation we will develop stronger links into the local communities through our funding which will repay over the longer term.