Mike Brown says he lost the argument with the DfT last year because Government did not want another operator in the mix at London Bridge during the Thameslink construction upheaval.
“We might have had some chance of preventing all the pitfalls that have been delivered there,” he counters. “It’s not about having one operator per station - it’s about having a clear remit to provide a consistent decent service.”
So is the DfT incapable of doing that?
“They have not been minded to work that way. They haven’t yet been persuaded that the interests of those on the periphery would not be disadvantaged by being answerable to local government instead.
“The Department could have done as we have on London Overground, but the impetus was not there. Yes, we had to spend money on the North London Line, but it was all within our budget settlement from Government. We just prioritised it differently.
“This was a terrible line. Its core section was running three trains per hour. It is eight now, and we’re going up to ten trains per hour in the next couple of years. Growth is phenomenal - capturing demand that was either on the Tube before, or using some main line stations, but it’s also new business, people discovering railways for the first time. By any stretch this is a major success story.”
The South East
“The South East has suffered from significant under-investment in its rail and road infrastructure.”
That’s the claim of councils in southeast England outside London. Really? The region of HS1, Thameslink, Crossrail and a large slice of Network Rail’s electrification programme, plus the youngest train fleet in Britain, is hard done by?
Apparently so. The region is lobbying for a larger slice of the financial cake, led by South East Strategic Leaders, a partnership of upper-tier authorities, and by South East England Councils, which covers all levels of council in an area encompassing Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East and West Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire and Surrey.
The leaders are David Burbage (from Windsor and Maidenhead Council) and Gordon Keymer (from Tandridge District Council), who wish their comments here to be jointly attributed.
They point out that the busy commuter routes from their region to the capital rely on track layouts largely unaltered since the days of steam. They say the South West Trains routes are the only ones that fully pay their way and make a genuine financial contribution to government, yet the region has missed out on the levels of government investment seen elsewhere.
“Under-investment is stemming our economic growth potential,” they tell RailReview. “With £80bn profit for the Treasury over the ten years from 2002-12, the South East is the UK’s most profitable economy, greater than all eight core cities combined and more than Wales and Scotland together. Ongoing under-investment will hit the South East’s ability to return profits to the Treasury to spend on economic regeneration UK-wide.
“South East transport investment is vital, but this will only happen with greater devolution of funding and powers alongside greater investment in strategic transport projects that cannot be delivered without Government’s help.”
How would this be achieved? The council groups suggest that devolution of property taxes would have created a regional pot worth almost £10bn in 2013-14 - a combination of council tax, business rates and stamp duty.
It would represent devolution of 11% of total taxes paid in the South East, which could be used to fund investment in road, rail and digital connectivity.
“The economic success of the UK should be underpinned by every part of the country maximising its economic growth potential,” they say. “That includes all cities, whether major conurbations like Manchester or smaller yet equally important and innovative cities such as Milton Keynes.
“Greater fiscal devolution will enable us to make a greater contribution to investment in vital local infrastructure, to unlock economic growth. But it will not be sufficient on its own. The South East transport network is not just for local journeys, it is an essential link to international ports and airports used by travellers, freight and businesses across the UK.
“Despite this, the South East’s only public transport link between the major airports of Heathrow and Gatwick is by coach. The HS1/Channel Tunnel routes, access to key London airports and ease of freight transport from the South Coast are critical to the national economy, and why we need fair funding from the Treasury for larger-scale, nationally significant rail and road schemes.
“South East councils need greater power and influence over the franchising arrangements for relevant major routes and the operation of rail services. At present, democratically elected councillors are mere consultees in these decisions.
“Our relationship with London is far from the whole transport picture,” the councillors conclude. “One area where South East authorities would like to work together is on improving orbital rail routes to improve intra-South East commuting - routes such as the North Downs lines and connections from Dover to Southampton.
“Another area where there is significant interest in influencing rail covers the routes for passengers and freight into Southampton and Portsmouth.”
London is not a template
The model for devolved transport powers in London is not seen as a template for the rest of the country, although TfL begs to differ, believing its method is viable elsewhere.
Devolution is meant to reduce London’s grip and place decision-making in the hands of those who know best. But if new bodies are to control chunks of the country’s infrastructure, might this not over-complicate an already burdensome bureaucracy?
“Nowhere else in the world can you walk into a central government department and bid for contracts covering an entire rail network,” says Northern Rail’s Alex Hynes.
“Nobody does it like this apart from us. In Germany you have a number of states. You don’t bid for rail contracts in Berlin - you bid to one of the states. And they have inter-city and international rail services that seem to work fine, although the specification, letting and running of the regional contracts is devolved. So I’m sure it can work.”
With fragmentation, is there not a risk that parochial local needs override a strategic national view?
“The reverse is true,” says TfL’s Mike Brown. “There is a fundamental difference between the connections between the great urban centres and the connections within them. Those distinctions are not always clear. But I happen to believe in local accountability for local transport planning decisions.”
“The local authorities that want deregulation see it as one part of a much wider strategy,” concludes CBT’s Stephen Joseph. “They don’t take the orders for new trains in isolation - it’s about larger labour markets, it’s about attracting inward investment, it’s about what kind of city region we want to see.
“Development plans can be shaped around it. The Department for Transport by its nature has a franchise management focus that is much narrower. It doesn’t need to look at better bus connections and integrated smart-ticketing all over a city.”
“The devolution agenda is not about trains and buses,” agrees Rail North’s David Brown. “It’s about the whole economy. The current government recognises that transport has a fundamental role to play in improving economic growth, and increasing productivity. London has proved that with TfL. We have a financial stake in making good things happen.” n
