Who's the landlord? TOCs or Network Rail?

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

Reading an item on the SHRUG website I came across a snippit about a station retailer complaining about their rent increase, which blamed South West Trains:

SWT^▸ (South West Trains) responded that catering outlets were not their responsibility. Yet an article about Brian Souter being in line for another, ^6.3 million, bonus drew the response from the proprietor of Coffee Charisma, Godalming: ^I am a tenant of SWT and they are asking me for a 140% increase in my rent, when the footfall at the station I have an outlet has increased 10% in 3 years.^

Do TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company), who themselves are merely tenants of stations, have any responsibilty for setting the rents payable by catering outlets?

[inspector_blakey]

Well, given that SHRUG will stop at nothing to put the boot into SWT^▸ (South West Trains) (to the extent that there are articles on the website complaining about Megabus, guilt by association since it's also Stagecoach-run ), I wouldn't be surprised if that snippet is incorrect. SWT evidently think that it's not their responsibility, but maybe the proprietor of Coffee Charisma knows better.

[Electric train]

Network Rail are the owners of all operational railway land that includes stations, the principle route TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) is the lease holder and is responsible for the operating and managing of the stations and can sub let space to retailers.  The exception are the major stations (like Paddington) which Network Rail operate