Wednesday 2 July,
09:30, Grimond Room, Portcullis House
The role of regional authorities in the planning of rail
infrastructure improvements will be examined in an evidence
session of the Transport Committee's inquiry into Rail Investment
Pipelines.
In this inquiry, the cross-party Committee is investigating how
developing long-term, transparent and sequenced plans – or
pipelines – could bring certainty and security to the ecosystem
of companies that commission and deliver improvements to the UK's
railways.
The first panel of witnesses in this session includes
representatives of the North East Combined Authority, Transport
for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands Rail Executive. They
will be asked to reflect on the level of influence they have in
the planning of rail projects in their areas under the current
regime of Network Rail's five-year Control Periods and
centrally-funded rail enhancement projects.
There may be questions about how projects in their patches have
been helped or hindered by the level of autonomy they have and
the funding streams available, as well as their ability to feed
into the business cases for individual projects and to hold
Network Rail to account over their decision making and delivery
of projects.
In a second panel, experts including former Rail Minister will be asked whether there could be greater
long-term, strategic oversight in the way that rail projects are
planned, and why the 2019 Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline has
not been updated.
The Committee will be interested to hear witnesses' views on
whether Great British Railways could be better placed to plan
rail infrastructure improvements in the future, how investment
pipelines could be developed, and how to make better use of
private sector investment.
The inquiry was launched last year in light of repeated calls
from industry for government support, and following concerns for
the future of Alstom's rolling stock factory in Derby, which
shone a light on the insecure ‘boom and bust' nature of the rail
supply industry.
Witnesses from 09:30
- Dawn Badminton-Capps, Head of Rail Partnerships at North East
Combined Authority
- Mal Drury-Rose, Executive Director at West Midlands Rail
Executive
- Liz Goldsby, Head of Northern Powerhouse Rail and High Speed
Development, Transport for Greater Manchester
From 10:30
- David Leeder, Director and Managing Partner at Transport
Investment Limited
- Jim Steer, Director at Greengauge 21
