Integrated Rail Plan critics 'have lost the plot', claims Network Rail boss

Opponents of the Government's controversial Integrated Rail Plan "have lost the plot", the chief executive of Network Rail has claimed.

Andrew Haines made the claim during an industry press briefing, The New Civil Engineer has reported.

He said those criticising the plan - which has curtailed the HS2 route so it won't reach Yorkshire and not delivered a new Leeds to Manchester line via Bradford - have done "an enormous disservice to the Treasury".

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Mr Haines reportedly declined to comment on whether “people felt they didn’t get everything they thought they had been promised” after repeated past Government promises that HS2 would reach Leeds and a new Northern Powerhouse Rail line would be built between Manchester and Leeds.

Commuters at Leeds railway station, which has been dropped from the HS2 Eastern leg route.Commuters at Leeds railway station, which has been dropped from the HS2 Eastern leg route.
Commuters at Leeds railway station, which has been dropped from the HS2 Eastern leg route.

But he said: “There is a huge level of investment in the IRP,” he said. “Yes, it isn’t everything that some expected. But a lot of those expectations were never grounded in anything like a business case that could stand alongside all the other demands for infrastructure investment. I’m not saying that there isn’t a notional economic case for it but demands have to be weighed up.

“IRP presents a huge opportunity for the railway to deliver transformational change.”

Mr Haines also told the briefing: “Those people who have been prepared to say that the £96bn investment [announced in the IRP] is a ‘kick in the teeth’ and an insult are doing an enormous disservice with the Treasury, particularly at a time when the economics of the railway are really challenging.

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“The rhetoric that has developed around that nationally has been profoundly unhelpful, imbalances, wrong.”

He said the Transpennine Route Upgrade has gone from a £3.5bn project to a £10bn one as a result of its scope being expanded to full electrification.

“In a normal, rational world, that would be a matter for huge celebration in an industry like ours. Instead, somehow, the dialogue on IRP has become one of ‘catastrophic disaster of cataclysmic proportions’ and created the view that the future of our industry is utterly dire.

“I just don’t get it – I think people have lost the plot absolutely big time on this.

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"The immensity of the challenge to deliver the IRP – even setting aside the bits of it which are quite vague – should not be underestimated. There is a huge amount to do in that regard."

Mr Haines said he decided not to comment when the IRP was originally published in November because the "noise in the wrong direction" meant remarks at the time would have been "no help". He said there had been a "modest input from Network Rail" in coming up with the plan and added there is still a "huge amount to do to understand how and when we deliver IRP".

The Transport Select Committee has recently begun an inquiry into the IRP.

A written submission from Dan Jarvis's South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority noted that of the £96bn investment announced, £42.5bn is to complete already-agreed work to connect HS2 to Birmingham and Crewe.

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It said the plan "fundamentally fails the East of the country".

It added: "Without new rail lines we cannot free up existing routes to improve local commuter services; with no new capacity we undermine local, regional and national economic growth as well as limiting our ability to take cars and freight off the road.

"The plan dresses up as new schemes a host of existing schemes that should have been funded years ago, including improvements to the main rail link between Sheffield and Manchester and the electrification of the Midland Mainline Route that connects London, the East Midlands and Sheffield."

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