Contributing Writer rail@bauermedia.co.uk
INFLATION has hacked back Network Rail’s five-year taxpayer fudniing package that starts next April, leaving the company with less public money with which to operate, maintain and renew the railway across Great Britain.
NR’s economic regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, revealed the figures on October 31, as it published its final determination for Control Period 7 (2024-29).
It gives NR a network grant from London and Edinburgh governments of £28.6 billion, which is 1% lower than Control Period 6’s grant of £28.8bn (with both sums expressed in 2023-24 prices).
With this money, plus the £10.6bn in track access charges from passenger and freight operators, ORR allows NR to spend £4.3bn on operating, £5.1bn on supporting, £11.4bn on maintaining, and £19.7bn on renewing its tracks, structures, signalling and other assets.
Announcing the figures, ORR Economics, Finance and Markets Director Will Godfrey said: “The plans are challenging but achievable. Our five-year funding and regulatory settlement provides stability and a platform for the industry to plan and invest.
“This is important not just for Network Rail, but also for passenger and freight operators and the supply chain. Network Rail must now set out how it will deliver on our final determination.”
NR Chief Executive Andrew Haines called the funding a vote of confidence, adding: “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.”
He continued: “Throughout CP7 we are committing to delivering extensive investments across the length and breadth of the network.
In addition to improvements to safety, we will 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.”
As well as deciding how much money NR can charge train and freight operators (access charges), ORR also decides NR’s performance targets. For CP7, it expects NR to lift on-train arrivals from 66.8% to 67.1%, describing this increase of 0.3 percentage points as ambitious.
ORR Railway Planning and Performance Deputy Director Richard Coates told RAIL that ORR had looked at what was achievable, with pressures on train performance coming from increasing numbers of passengers and more extreme weather
