I’ve heard of kicking a can down the road, but an entire rail network?
Due to be published last autumn, the eagerly-awaited Williams Review into our national rail network has still not seen the light of day. Under the convenient media black-out caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, all enquiries as to when the report may appear have been met with a stony silence. Even senior members of the national and specialist trade press haven’t been let in on a likely launch date, still less given any firm ideas as to what the report may contain.
The best guess is that it could be autumn 2020 – a year late – before all is finally revealed. We have a situation that leaves everyone to speculate, which is a dangerous and potentially costly thing to do at the best of times.
The unvarnished truth is that the UK’s rail network is in a parlous state. For starters, we know for sure is that the franchise system for carving up the regions is in ruins to the point where some, like that formerly in the hands of Virgin Rail, are being threatened with renationalisation. But the Williams Report promised so much more, addressing such thorny issues as season tickets, peak fares, the efficacy of the regulator, renationalisation and how the infrastructure could be modernised by spending vast sums of taxpayers’ money through the offices of Network Rail.
Again, we know – in this instance because we have direct experience of being at the mercy of it –that the Control Period (CP) mechanism used by Network Rail for dishing out work is another disaster. Contracts that should have been awarded a year ago are only now beginning to materialise, especially for those at the lower end of the food chain. Smaller companies in the supply chain have been brought to their knees at the expense of jobs and irreplaceable know-how.
We are all being treated as if it’s none of our business when in point of fact Network Rail receives all of its funding from HM Government, using money taken from the taxpayer. As things stand, we don’t know what we’re buying as taxpayers and what we should be working on as long-serving suppliers to the industry. The tragedy is that, when Mr Williams’ Review is finally published and his recommendations acted upon, there may not be anyone left alive to carry out the work required.
By Angus Dent – Chairman of RSP