I was very interested to hear what Rob Brighouse had to say, and was delighted to find that what he did say was
predictable and held few surprises.
Delighted? Yes. His assessment of the position was as sound, thoughtful and considered as I would expect from him, and there were no major surprises. I like that - it means I can carry on planning how my organisation may respond in a way that has not had any inconvenient spanners thrown into the works, I look forward to seeing what he has to say when the report compilation is over at the end of March, and he has formulated his recommendations. I am optimistic that there will be some good things to come out of it.
Having said that, there is a good deal of complexity lurking in here. The route, the relationships, the contract framework, the financing, the timing and impact on other schemes - all seem to have their individual problems, and all need answers that match with each other. Together they add up to a ‘small-scale’ railway, but some ‘large-scale’ issues.
I have no issue at all with Rob’s approach. Set out the problems clearly - tick. Get a good team alongside you - double tick. Agree roles - tick. Agree timescales with the client - tick. What I do have some issue with is not his and his team’s ability to deliver any of this, but the notion that a railway of this scale will actually teach NR or the DfT a great deal about anything very much.
We know that you can put in place different financing and ownership arrangements - we do that on a regular basis all over the world. But taking a railway of this size as a model to compare NR with misses the point.
The problem for NR on a daily basis is scale. It is an immense operation, and I am far from convinced that anything that is done on East West Rail will necessarily be scalable up to the national level. At best it will serve as a useful example of how individual parts of the railway might be built and operated with new arrangements - but necessarily thinking that wider application will solve national-scale problems, I remain sceptical about. I truly hope that it is a great success and that I am wrong about wider lessons. Good luck guys.
