Funds sought for East Coast Judicial Review

A legal challenge could be launched seeking a Judicial Review into the handling of the InterCity East Coast (ICEC) franchise.

Campaign group Bring Back British Rail wants to raise £30,000 in a crowdfunding exercise. Its legal advisor has written to Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling asking him to confirm that he will “revoke the Franchise Passports granted to Stagecoach and/ or Virgin and/or suspend them pending a full investigation of what went wrong”, and “whether the costs of terminating the franchise have in fact been met or could be expected to be met by the fulfilment of Stagecoach’s obligations”.

A Judicial Review (JR) is a way that public bodies can be held to account. One was held looking at the decision to award FirstGroup the Intercity West Coast franchise in 2012, which eventually led to Virgin Trains retaining the deal and a franchise review. Virgin Trains East Coast currently operates the ICEC franchise.

Tammy Samuel, Rail Partner at Stephenson Harwood LLP, told RAIL that a JR would need to prove one of three things: illegality, irrationality or procedural impropriety. The latter is where action against Grayling could be easiest to prove, but all that is likely to happen would be the SoS would be forced to revisit his decision.

Samuel said that what the threat of a JR does do is to put political pressure on public bodies and try to influence any decision. She said they need to be quick and take place within three months of the initial decision.

Grayling announced the East Coast Partnership plans in November 2017, and said the existing franchise was failing at a Transport Select Committee hearing on January 22.

Should a Judicial Review reach court, which could take as long as two years, then it would likely cost a six or seven-figure sum, plus any costs should the case be unsuccessful.