Although there is a requirement for NR to satisfy the Office of Rail and Road that land being released is no longer needed for railway purposes, there are certain to be cases where a future use is not anticipated. There is no doubt that many of the fire sales carried out by British Rail Property Board (BRPB) at the behest of a Treasury impatient for easy money are deeply regretted. Quite apart from the lack of foresight in protecting the linear integrity of closed lines, the indecent haste of disposals was at the expense of long-term gains from the rising property market.
A 1985 Monopolies & Mergers Commission inquiry into property disposals criticised the arbitrary nature of the sales timetable that the Government had imposed. Constraints on BRPB prevented it emulating East Japan Railway (see page 34) in developing long-term joint ventures - a rare and very successful exception being the Broadgate development beside Liverpool Street station with Rosehaugh Stanhope.
Even today, planning permission is still being granted to developments that would reduce the chances of a railway re-opening, even where such proposals exist. The costs of rebuilding East West rail between Oxford and Cambridge will be much higher because sections of trackbed were built on, although one silver lining is that work to identify the optimum new route east of Milton Keynes is assessing the scope for housing developments adjacent to the railway. As a rule of thumb, between 3,000 and 4,000 houses are required to justify a new station without revenue subsidy.
Many other re-opening schemes hinge around housing developments, raising the prospect of creating new transport hubs and revenue from station developments. Reinstatement of the Stratford-upon-Avon to Honeybourne line is predicated on the construction of 5,900 new homes on two ex-military brownfield sites near Long Marston. One of the developers, CALA homes, has offered £17m towards the railway’s re-opening.
Then there is the need to expand stations to cope with rising numbers. Jonathan Bray, director of the Urban Transport Group, is concerned that “decisions might be taken that would later reduce capacity for station expansion or for bringing freight directly into cities”.
It was one thing selling railway land when it was widely thought that railways were on a downward trajectory - it’s quite another when it is expanding at rates unknown for a century, with every reason to believe that the trend will continue.
The first fruits of the NR/HCA collaborations were announced in April, for three sites: 2,500 homes and 100,000m2 of office space are earmarked for a ‘sustainable new community’ at York; a mix of offices, shops, restaurants, cinema, hotel and 49 homes at Taunton; and land around Swindon station has been identified for housing and commercial development.
