Privatisation? What privatisation?

There was an enormous fanfare back in December when Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling gave a much-trailed speech about how Network Rail would no longer have a monopoly over infrastructure developments on the railways. He said that East West Rail, the plan to complete the Oxford-Cambridge line, would be built by a separate organisation in the private sector.

Well, it has all gone a bit quiet since then, with the only significant development being the appointment of Phil Verster to run the project. That’s the same Phil Verster who was previously MD of the ScotRail Alliance between Abellio and Network Rail.

Clearly, if this project was really going to break the mould of the current way that schemes are managed, one would have thought that it would be set up as an entirely separate organisation. I understand, however, that just as with previous attempts to attract private companies to run rail infrastructure projects (older readers will remember the late great Alastair Morton’s failed attempts to create Special Purpose Vehicles to do the work), there is a marked lack of interest from firms willing to take on these schemes.

Simply put, private companies realise that there is a lot of reputational risk from such projects - just consider the Great Western Electrification, for example - and little to be gained.

We will have to see if the report Network Rail has commissioned from Professor Peter Hansford, to look into the potential of third party funding in the rail industry, comes up with any new answers. It was due to be published at the end of this month, but will now have to wait until after the General Election.