Peer review: Councillor Chris Steward
Chairman, Consortium of East Coast Main Line Authorities
Philip Haigh succinctly sets out the challenge facing the Office of Rail and Road in deciding how to utilise capacity of the East Coast Main Line to best effect. At the Consortium of East Coast Main Line Authorities (ECMA), we think the ECML’s economic potential should be a key consideration in its decision-making.
Our research (The Prospectus for Investment in the East Coast Main Line) into the economic impact of improving services along the ECML shows a potential GDP benefit of £5 billion. (ECMA defines the ECML more broadly than just London to Edinburgh in its national economic role - we are also concerned about the connectivity of places such as Aberdeen, Bradford, Grimsby, Hull, Inverness, Leeds, Lincoln, Middlesbrough and Perth.)
This figure rises by a further £4bn when HS2 services run to York, the North East and Scotland. Consequently, businesses require a more reliable railway service with faster journey times, greater infrastructure resilience and improved connectivity between locations.
We know that the economies along the ECML contribute over £300bn to the UK’s GVA each year. These economies contain industries that are of various types, sizes and propensities to travel. Growth centres are located along the whole route, in fields such as finance and business, life sciences and biotechnology, tourism, oil and gas, and advanced and applied manufacturing. Business leaders say they need better links along the ECML to release the potential of these centres, statements that have been underpinned by our analysis of the potential agglomeration and labour market benefits.
From the evidence, we have developed a set of conditional outputs that (if fully met) will generate significant potential economic benefits. We have deliberately asked the rail industry how best to achieve these outputs, rather than merely coming up with our own schemes, and we are contributing to the imminent Network Rail East Coast Route Study.
The outputs are based on having a reliable and resilient infrastructure, and are as follows:
- Eight long-distance high speed trains per hour each way to London by 2019, with a ninth train per hour to Cambridge from the north.
- Through HS2 services beyond York.
- Journey time improvements along the whole ECML, including internal journeys in Scotland. More direct services serving London from places off the core East Coast Main Line (for example, the Virgin Trains East Coast bid for trains between Middlesbrough and London).
- Better connectivity from places near London (for example, Stevenage) with other places on the ECML.
- A more professional, office environment on each train, including continuous free WiFi, good mobile phone reception and sufficient seat capacity.
- Each station of a quality to actively encourage people to travel by train and enable it to be the “gateway” reflecting the economy and community that it serves.
- Gauge enhancement to ensure that freight trains can carry W12 size containers to and from key ports and strategic rail freight interchanges.
- Additional line capacity to allow more, longer, freight trains to run efficiently without detriment to passenger trains.
Philip writes of the need to justify investment, and that the sum currently being invested in the East Coast Main Line is close to being unjustified.
My view is that the strategic case for economic growth along the ECML exists and that the investment is needed to help realise it. Indeed, my view is that the development of solutions by the rail industry may well mean that more funding is needed to secure the conditions for the stronger economic growth.
