Kenilworth delays
Local rail campaigner FRASER PITHIE has been among the supporters of the scheme to reopen Kenilworth station, but has been frustrated by a succession of postponements and lack of transparency about the reasons why. He offers his personal insight into the
Why local campaigners have become increasingly frustrated by delays to opening Kenilworth station.
Kenilworth lost its railway station in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts, although the line on which it was located between Coventry and Leamington Spa managed to cling on as a freight-only through route.
It was heavily rationalised by British Rail down from a double-track to a single-line branch between Milverton Junction and Kenilworth Common, but would go on to regain passenger services in 1977 - run by BR between Birmingham, Oxford, Paddington and the South Coast, and now operated by CrossCountry.
Since the 1970s, local politicians have made strenuous efforts to reinstate the station, but have met with very little success. A change in fortune finally came with the passage of the Localism Act 2011, which empowered local authorities to play a more significant role in local transport provision and associated infrastructure.
As a result of an £11.3 million funding partnership struck between Warwickshire County Council ( WCC), Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and the Department for Transport’s New Stations Fund in 2013, Kenilworth is now on the brink of having a station again. But as a long-time resident of the town, my view is of a story of woe and calamity that does not bode well for the future of similar local authority-sponsored rail enhancement schemes.
That is because from the very outset, when planning permission was granted in 2011, the project to build the station has raised serious questions about the ability of local government to deliver technical schemes where they have no or little experience.
There have also been significant problems concerning cost management of the new station (now estimated at £13.6m), as well as the incredible failure to open it on at least four separate occasions since its original opening date was missed back in December 2016.
Meanwhile, I also have to strongly condemn the apparent lack of transparency in WCC’s handling of the process, and what could be interpreted as efforts made to avoid being held properly accountable by station co-funders, local stakeholders and taxpayers alike.
This culminated in me sending a letter to local MP Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth, Conservative) on March 15 to request that the scheme be referred to Secretary of State for Communities and Local Communities Sajid Javid, Secretary of State Chris Grayling and the Transport Select Committee ( RAIL 849). I will now explain the reasons why. I think the best way to describe the Kenilworth station project is as a ‘dog’s breakfast’. After all, the station is more than 15 months late, 20% over its original budget, and considerable mistakes were made in its early construction.
One example was the apparent absence in the proposed station plans of knowledge concerning a pre-existing culvert, which meant the whole station had to be moved around 12 metres northwards from its planned site. The responsibility for this oversight has not been divulged.
Local authorities such as WCC rarely possess detailed railway knowledge, so have to buy it in by hiring special consultants. Consequently, as scheme sponsor, they are almost entirely in the hands of the rail consultant and heavily dependent on them.
The consultant in this case is SLC Rail which, according to its website, charges what it describes as “indicative” annual fees of around £ 700,000.
Frustratingly, it is very difficult to know exactly how much SLC Rail is being paid by WCC, owing to the opaque nature of the local authority’s responses to Freedom of Information requests made on this subject.
However, local authorities do not, by hiring external consultants, lose their responsibility and accountability to taxpayers for the efficient and effective use of public funds. It is therefore hard to see any justification for why WCC is withholding basic information about a multimillion-pound infrastructure project such as this.
This unwillingness to be open and honest is all the more worrying given that the cost of the station has risen from an original estimate of £11.3m in 2013 to its current level of £13.6m - of which £1.5m is a contingency fee.
With £4.9m funding from the DfT’s New Stations Fund and £ 3.5m from the Coventry & Warwickshire LEP, in addition to the £ 5.2m made available by WCC, I am surprised that there has not been more public interest from these bodies as to why the cost increases have occurred.
Meanwhile, WCC’s decision not to use the industry standard and the Office of Rail and Road’s favoured set of management rules and essential guidance for the cost management of construction projects (Rail Method of Measurement) makes a direct comparison with other new station projects difficult.
All I can point to is that 50 miles south of Kenilworth (at Oxford Parkway) and approximately 50 miles north (at Ilkeston), larger station developments with longer platforms and bigger car parks were respectively opened in 2015 and 2017 at a cost considerably less than Kenilworth (£ 8m in the case of Oxford Parkway, and £10m for Ilkeston).
There may, of course, be mitigating factors. But if so, why has WCC declined to explain the differences?
One reason could be that Kenilworth station is not an out-of-town parkway, and is closer to the town centre than either Oxford Parkway or Ilkeston. It is therefore highly likely that land costs were higher, but in response to an FoI request made by myself, WCC has so far refused to give an actual cost for this on the grounds of “commercial sensitivity”.
This decision is made all the more puzzling as the information is already publicly available at the Land Registry, which confirmed the land cost at £1.27m.
But according to the set of figures that WCC has released, £ 2.31m was given for ‘Land and Associated Costs’, which begs the question
My view is of a story of woe and calamity that does not bode well for the future of similar local authority-sponsored rail enhancement schemes.
Kenilworth has to serve as a warning to local authorities across the UK not to commit to schemes unless they have clear understanding regarding rail construction and operations, and are assured through robust scrutiny procedures that those managing schemes on their behalf are effective in meeting deliverables on time and on budget.
of what the other £1.04m was for? Similarly, I have discovered that the construction contract awarded to Graham Construction to build Kenilworth was £ 5.73m, yet WCC shows £ 7.78m for ‘Scheme Construction’.
This puts more than £ 2.05m with someone other than the building contractor, which WCC says is covered by utility diversions, consultant fees, WCC internal costs and Network Rail fees payable for associated track and signalling works.
None has been itemised. And to make matters worse, an FoI request made to NR to get more detail about the works was refused to me “on the grounds of national security”.
In fairness to WCC, the project has also fallen foul of decisions outside of its control.
It was conceived on the basis that the line would be redoubled through Kenilworth and electrified as part of NR’s North-South ‘Electric Spine’ scheme for completion in Control Period 5 (April 2014-March 2019).
The Hendy Review published in November 2015 put an end to these plans (at least in the short term), leaving WCC to foot the bill for a footbridge and lifts leading to the foundations to a second platform which will not be used for the foreseeable future.
What is less easy to forgive is WCC Joint Managing Director Monica Fogarty’s decision to blame the DfT when the station failed for a second time in December 2017.
Having said that “the station is completed and looks amazing” just days earlier, Fogarty then hit out at the DfT for not supplying sufficient drivers or rolling stock to start the hourly service that West Midlands Trains ( WMT) had applied to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to operate.
The DfT issued a firm denial of the accusation, and a succession of revised opening dates was given by WCC for February and then March. All were missed.
The DfT’s position was subsequently fully vindicated by an email I received from ORR Chief Executive Joanna Whittington on March 16. In it, she confirmed that ORR was still waiting to receive information from WCC that is needed to ensure that the station complies with safety standards ( RAIL 849).
She added: “Once we have received all of the information… we will be able to complete our authoritisation of the station in order that it can come into service. We do not have a date from the project team regarding when they would like to open the station.”
On March 20, Fogarty said on local radio that the outstanding information would be submitted later that day. But why did WCC attempt to blame others for its failure to open the station in December, when it is clear that fault lay at the council’s door?
To add insult to injury, WCC stonewalled press and residents’ enquiries repeatedly throughout the month of March, leading to an information vacuum and heaping further
pressure on the authority to now explain its actions.
We must ask ourselves if such behavior is befitting of a higher-tier local authority, but also what scrutiny has been applied to WCC’s project manager SLC Rail?
Sadly, we may never know the answer to the latter question, owing to WCC’s seemingly ritual use of ‘commercial sensitivity’ and ‘competitive advantage’ to claim FoI exemptions. While there are legitimate reasons to using such exemptions, I doubt that it should extend to providing a simple total annual spend with a supplier as has been requested, yet WCC continues to reject such transparency.
I think that Kenilworth station could more accurately be described as ‘Mothball Halt’. At an incredible £13.6m, we have an over-budget station with a redundant footbridge and no second platform.
There will also be a service that will operate on just six days a week, after WMT withdrew its application to ORR for seven-day running due to a lack of suitable rolling stock. WCC cannot be blamed for this, but it comes as a further disappointment to local residents who have been waiting for 53 years to get their station back.
This brings me to usage figures for the station. In February 2018, Fogarty said that an estimated 445 passengers would use the station daily (which would equate to approximately 162,000 annually). But the forecast estimate of 275,000 suggests 753 people would use the station daily. WCC has subsequently clarified this by stating that the forecast passenger numbers of 445 per day relate to “new to rail” journeys, whereas the per annum figure relates to the total journeys, including those abstracted from other stations.
The accuracy of these usage figures is important, as WCC was pressed by broadcast media on March 20 about underwriting train service operating losses. In response, Fogarty said: “We have done a new deal with West Midlands Trains via the DfT, and we will be paying a one-off fee”.
Sensing there was a need for further clarity, BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Radio pursued the issue with interviewer Phil Upton asking: “Will Warwickshire County Council underwrite any operating losses for the train operating company at Kenilworth?” Fogarty replied: “No”, effectively contradicting her previous response.
Subsequent correspondence confirms payment of a one-off fee in respect of underwriting operating losses, but yet again WCC refuses to say how much this payment/ one-off fee is. With a service running for just six days out of seven, a potential significant operating cost shortfall becomes a real possibility, reinforcing the need to know what the fee agreed and derived from taxpayers amounts to.
However, detailed information on this aspect of the Kenilworth scheme is scarce, because it is included in minutes and briefing papers taken from cabinet meetings that were exempt from the public, effectively placing reports beyond the reach of FoI requests.
In summary, the story of Kenilworth has to serve as a warning to local authorities across the UK not to commit to schemes unless they have clear understanding regarding rail construction and operations, and are assured through robust scrutiny procedures that those managing schemes on their behalf are effective in meeting deliverables on time and on budget.
Perhaps it’s time for ORR to consider carrying out a benchmarking exercise on new station builds?
Funding for projects such as Kenilworth comes from one source - you and me, through local and general taxation. That is why we have a right to know what, why, where and how our money is spent.
Left unchallenged or without a rethink of how they are governed, I fear that the number of schemes with unclear and increasing costs is likely to grow. A situation could then emerge that chokes off a great many innovative and much-needed enhancements because financial estimates are adjusted upwards, owing to the inflated costs arising from poorly executed schemes.
This has the potential to kill off otherwise sound business cases at a time when NR is increasingly opening itself up to third party financed schemes, and the DfT is seeking a more market-led approach to enhancements ( RAIL 849).
The apparent lack of effective oversight and governance in the case of Kenilworth cannot and should not be tolerated, when so much taxpayers’ money appears unaccounted for within the £13.6m new station scheme that (at the time of writing) has still not opened its doors.