KHOODEELAAR! Noting the item with UK Con Transport portfolio courier Theresa Villiers apparently CONTRADICTING George Osborne’s ‘c commitment t to build Crossrail’ as seen in yesterday’s trade press plug to that effect

'No guarantees' over major rail schemes if Tories win election

Posted: 3rd February 2010 | No Comments

RAILNEWS EXCLUSIVE
If the Conservatives win the General Election, many railway projects and plans will come under review.

That’s the warning from the party’s shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers. She believes commitments made by the present government may not be affordable.

She told Railnews: “Take electrification. It is easy to make promises, and I am certainly a supporter of railway electrification in principle. I can also see a good case for choosing the routes which the government has named – the Great Western Main Line to Swansea, Oxford and Newbury and several in the north west. They are all very strong candidates.

“But the real issue is affordability, and I cannot give a guarantee that any scheme would go ahead under a Conservative government until we have applied the Value for Money test. The government certainly sounds committed to these plans, but the real question will be whether it will be able to come through on its promises.”

She is also reluctant to give any commitment on such major procurements as the Thameslink Programme fleet and Intercity Express.
“The benefits of new rolling stock are understood. But whether the fleets can be ordered as they have been described is another matter. I am not transport secretary. If, speaking hypothetically, I were to be transport secretary after the election then I would be able to scrutinise the proposed contracts. At the moment, I can’t. We are also waiting for the government’s delayed Rolling Stock Plan. Until we see the components in that Plan it is very difficult to say what we might do.

“The main problem, of course, is the general financial position that we will inherit. The government has created substantial debts, and it can’t go on writing cheques forever. So any project will have to come under review after the election. I would say the Crossrail project will be included in that review as well. But Crossrail would bring important benefits, so the test will be one of affordability.”

The transport secretary Andrew Adonis told Railnews in autumn 2009  that he was seeking a cross-party consensus on High Speed Rail, at least in general terms, and from what Ms Villiers says it does seem that he might have achieved it.

However, Ms Villiers’ vision is slightly different from that of the Government. She said: “We’ve prepared a detailed model and business case for a High Speed Line from London, serving Heathrow as well, and then going north to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. A route has not yet been decided, but those are the places which will be served first.“It is essential that we do start building a High Speed network, and the places I have mentioned will form the first stage. After that we would go on from Leeds to Newcastle, and then on to Scotland. But we would see this project being developed, built and opened in several stages in any case. That’s been the typical pattern in other countries.

“As for costings, we reckon London/Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds will need £20 billion. Under our plans, just over three quarters of that investment would come from the taxpayer, and £4.3 billion from the private sector. Fares would be comparable with intercity generally. I’m not ruling out premium fares altogether, but our business model does not assume them.”

The timescale for the Conservative High Speed network would not see construction start before 2015, with completion of the first stage twelve years later.“We are confident of our figures,” says Ms Villiers, “because we have done extensive modelling as part of our business case.”

(c) Railnews Ltd 2010

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