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Publication Date: November 22 2006
BRITAIN URGENTLY needs a new high-speed north-south railway, built as a public-sector project, Britain's biggest rail union says today in the wake of the National Audit Office's damning verdict on the West Coast Mainline upgrade.
The NAO report revealed that the "vastly overbudget" £8.6 billion upgrade will be incapable of coping with passenger growth as soon as 2015, and incorporates signalling components that will be obsolete significantly earlier than expected.
"The private sector has proved itself breathtakingly inefficient, wasteful and incapable of serious long-term transport planning that can deliver the huge increase in capacity our environment demands," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.
"The private train operator on the West Coast line has also taken nearly £600 million more in public subsidy than originally expected under its franchise agreement.
"The stark warnings in the Stern report underline the need for a fundamental rethink by the government about transport priorities, and a shift from road and air travel to trains, trams and buses.
"If we are to get people out of cars and planes and onto trains we need a growing, joined-up and affordable railway in an integrated transport network, and a new high-speed north-south railway is clearly essential.
"However, it is equally clear that it cannot be delivered by the current fragmented and privatised set-up.
"We hope that the Eddington Transport Study will accept RMT's submission, not only that a north-south high-speed railway line is essential, but that it should be delivered as part of an integrated and publicly owned railway," Bob Crow said.
ends
Note to editors: Sir Rod Eddington was commissioned by the government to undertake a study of the transport system, and is expected to publish his report shortly.
