Why is the industry carping on about the bits of this report they don’t like? Well, I don’t like ‘going forward’, ‘world class’ and such waffle –I would love to see the ‘track changes’ version, but on the whole this is a brilliant, sensible and pragmatic piece of work. Now let’s make it happen.
I’ll answer my own question first, which is easy; if you say you are going to reduce costs in the industry, the people you are taking the money from are not going to like it. Other arguments are usually that the Government won’t actually do what it says, and most of the Twittersphere wouldn’t support a Tory proposal even if it gave them billions of pounds, which come to think of it they just have. After years of stupid rail policies, we can’t write anything without saying ‘but…’. Well, I’m going to this time.
YES IS THE ANSWER
Take a little trip back through reports of the past like Beeching and Serpell and think what might have been. In these enlightened times we have got used to investment pouring in, yet value for money is appalling. The Williams-Shapps plan rightly pillories Great Western electrification, then goes on to say new schemes are better. Despite the huge post-Covid debt, they have left our plug in, not pulled it.
