[ad_1]
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has approved Network Rail’s plan to spend £43.1bn across the railway in England, Wales and Scotland over the next five years – which is lower than previously forecast.
The plan covers spending on the railway between April 2024 to March 2029 – the period known as Control Period 7 (CP7).
In its strategic business plan published earlier this year, Network Rail outlined how it would spend £44.8bn across the railway in England, Wales and Scotland over CP7, which is £1.7bn more than the £43.1bn allocated in the final version.
Network Rail said the latest figure reflects a spending decrease of £1.5bn on operations, support, maintenance and renewals from its strategic business plan. It put this decrease down to a reduced income, which has reduced the amount that it can spend in CP7.
“ORR anticipates that the overall funding for CP7 will be adequate for Network Rail to deliver its commitments across the network. This will be supported by Network Rail’s continued efficiency and reasonably sized and effectively governed risk funds,” Network Rail said in a statement.
Network Rail has also made several changes to the CP7 programme since the ORR published a draft determination in June of this year, which included several recommendations.
One major change is that the infrastructure manager is planning to increase its spending on core railway infrastructure by approximately £600M.
ORR had previously called on Network Rail to increase its spend on core assets – including track, structures and earthworks – by £600M in its draft determination.
In the final CP7 plan, Network Rail has also responded to the ORR’s concerns raised in its draft determination about its proposals on earthworks and drainage. These highlighted concerns about how Network Rail will implement the action plans it developed following the reports from former Institution of Civil Engineers president Robert Mair and former Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo following the fatal derailment of a passenger train at Carmont in 2020.
Network Rail has also committed to sufficient additional expenditure on earthworks.
On top of this, all regions have committed to significantly increasing their resources for drainage management and have stated their commitment to continue to deliver the action plans developed following the reports by Mair and Slingo.
A key focus of the final CP7 programme remains on renewing core assets to make them more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
Meanwhile, Network Rail will conduct fewer renewals in comparison to CP6 – with more refurbishment, life-extending repairs and maintenance instead.
“ORR considers that Network Rail has a suitable framework to understand and manage the change in risk from carrying out fewer renewals and a move to greater maintenance of existing assets,” the ORR said in its final determination.
Network Rail will also be required to deliver at least £3.2bn of efficiencies in CP7.
Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said: “The impact of inflation, tight public finances and the need to invest more to manage the impact of more frequent extreme weather on the infrastructure does mean that our funding will need to go further than ever before.
“Throughout CP7 we are committing to delivering extensive investments across the length and breadth of the network. In addition to improvements to safety, we’ll work to boost train performance, usher in new technologies, invest significantly more funds to tackle climate change as well as make £3.6bn of efficiency savings.”
[ad_2]
Source link