Shapps launches the search to find the home of Great British Railways

• Competition will be launched to find the location – outside of London – for the national HQ of Great British Railways.
• Shapps confirms that the forerunner to Great British Railways is now up and running, focused on the recovery of the railways following the pandemic.

• Part of the Conservative Government’s Plan for Rail – delivering on our promise to scrap franchising to deliver better services for passengers.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has today announced that a national competition will be held to find the first home of the new Great British Railways organisation.

The headquarters of Britain's unified rail system will be in a city or town outside of London, bringing high value jobs and investment to the chosen area, in line with the Conservatives’ levelling up agenda, and marking a new era in an industry gifted by this country to the world. Through the competition, Great British Railways will recognise towns and cities with a rich railway heritage that are strongly linked to the rail network.

Great British Railways was announced in May as part of the Plan for Rail – delivering on the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to end the outdated, complicated franchising model and replace it with a simpler system that delivers better outcomes for passengers.

Great British Railways will sit at the head of the new system – integrating the railways, owning the infrastructure, collecting fare revenue, running and planning the network and setting most fares and timetables. A new GBR website will sell tickets, which will be simplified and made available online and on mobile as standard. Private companies, which have contributed to nearly three decades of growth on the railways, will continue to compete to run services, but will focus more on delivering outstanding customer service while GBR takes on responsibility for timetables and most fares.

The Transport Secretary has today also announced that the forerunner to Great British Railways – the Great British Railways Transition Team – is beginning the work of transforming the fragmented rail system into a streamlined sector focused on delivering for the passenger. The Transition Team, headed by respected industry leader Andrew Haines, will be responsible for driving forward the planned reforms over the years ahead.

The Transport Secretary has set out the founding principles that will guide its efforts over the coming months, in order to achieve the level of change passengers deserve. GBR Transition Team will:

• Think like our customers, both passengers and freight, and put them first;
• Change the culture of the railways, not simply create a bigger version of Network Rail;
• Grow the network and get more people travelling;
• Make the railways easier to use;
• Simplify the sector to do things quicker, drive down costs and be more accountable;
• Have a can-do, not a can’t-do culture;
• Harness the best of the private sector; and
• Play a critical role in the national shift to net zero.

Commenting, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:

"Great British Railways deserves a great new home, and the competition is on to find the city or town that will become the future capital of our railway industry.

"For the winner it will mean a new employer offering high value jobs for decades to come.

"GBR is no longer a concept but a reality as the Transition Team begins the work of consolidating our fractured rail industry under one banner - a brand that I am determined will be synonymous with excellent customer service."

Throughout the pandemic the Government has stepped in with more than £14 billion of support to keep the railways open for key workers.

The Conservatives are now getting on with the job of delivering better services for passengers and growing the network for years to come. We have recently launched new flexible season tickets to recognise new ways of working, and delivering on our manifesto commitment to reopen lines that were closed around the time of the Beeching Cuts in the 1960s. The first Beeching reopening will be the line between Exeter and Okehampton – with passenger services back running later this year.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

• In May, we published the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, setting out the path towards a truly passenger-focused railway. The White Paper sets out how we will ensure the interests of rail passengers are also put first, with ten key outcomes – including high-quality consistent services, simpler ways of paying for travel and straightforward compensation, and cleaner greener railways as we drive towards net zero (DfT, News Story, 20 May 2021, link).

• Through the Plan for Rail, we announced we would create Great British Railways - a single familiar brand that will deliver better services for passengers. To bring about change on the scale needed, we will create a new public body – Great British Railways – who will integrate the railways, own the infrastructure, collect fare revenue, run and plan the network, and set most fares and timetables. A new single GBR website will sell tickets, which will be simpler to use with contactless and digital. Compensation will also be simple to claim (DfT, News Story, 20 May 2021, link).

• Establishing the Great British Railways Transition Team, the forerunner to GBR which will drive forward the reforms that will benefit passengers. The Great British Railways Transition Team has been created under the leadership of respected industry leader Andrew Haines, and will be responsible for driving forward reforms and creating the railway’s new guiding mind. This forerunner to the eventual Great British Railways organisation will initially focus on driving recovery efforts post-pandemic.

• Setting out the founding principles behind Great British Railways to ensure that passengers are at the heart of everything we do. In order to achieve the level of change passengers deserve, we have set out the core goals which will define the Transition Team’s work, including changing the culture of railway to focus on passengers; getting more people travelling on the network; making the railway easy to use; and harnessing the best of the private sector.

• Launching a competition to find the first national headquarters of Great British Railways, which will be outside of London, and recognise this country’s proud railway heritage. We will launch a competition to identify the national headquarters for GBR, which will be outside of London. The Great British Railways Transition Team will welcome expressions of interest once the competition is launched, and will recognise towns and cities with a rich railway history that are strongly linked to the network. In time, we will create regional bases for GBR to sit alongside the national HQ.