£163 billion plan
EEH Programme Director MARTIN TUGWELL tells PAUL STEPHEN about the importance of the strategic alliance’s bid to become a sub-national transport body
The importance of England‘s Economic Heartland’s plans to become a sub-national transport body.
On April 1, Transport for the North officially became the UK’s first ever sub-national statutory transport body. Backed by £ 260 million in government funding, the partnership of 19 local and combined authorities from the north of England was handed a wide range of new legal powers. These include the authority to develop and implement a 30-year Strategic Transport Plan, deliver smart ticketing systems, decide on capital grants, and jointly manage (with the Department for Transport) the Northern and TransPennine franchises.
Meanwhile, its new legal status also means that government must formally consider TfN’s recommendations when making future strategic transport investment decisions.
Following closely behind TfN is a group of emerging sub-national transport bodies, comprising Midlands Connect, Transport for the South East and England’s Economic Heartland (EEH).
However, until they too can gain Parliamentary approval to become statutory bodies, their remit remains limited to providing strategic leadership on transport matters and a strictly advisory role to government on behalf of their members.
EEH Programme Director Martin Tugwell explains: “There are three nascent subnational transport bodies (STBs), including EEH, with ambitions to become statutory like TfN. We all regularly talk to each other and the DfT, so there’s clear opportunity to make progress in a co-ordinated way, and to learn from the shared experiences of TfN.
“Ultimately, I think the benefit of [eventually] having four fully fledged STBs is that it gives our partners much extra weight. Government already recognises the value we bring and actively reaches out for our advice, because they know they can have one conversation about transport investment priorities with four bodies, rather than 160 conversations with all the UK’s different local councils.”
He adds: “That’s not to say that the local perspective is not important, but on strategic
issues such as infrastructure or rail franchising, having a single view has far more clout.”
Launched in December 2014, EEH represents local transport authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships in a corridor running from Oxfordshire in the west through to Cambridgeshire in the east.
This corridor contains some 5.1 million people, and 280,000 businesses employing 2.5 million people and has an economy valued at £143 billion.
Many of these businesses operate in the high-value and high-skilled engineering, technology, science and research sectors, with large clusters around the world-renowned university cities of Oxford and Cambridge in particular.
The Government’s National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has previously identified the region as the UK’s equivalent of Silicon Valley, and reported in November 2017 that the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor must accordingly be made a national priority in order to secure significant levels of future economic growth, and to increase the UK’s global competitiveness.
In particular, it emphasised that poor inter-regional east-west connectivity must be addressed to enable the corridor to achieve its full growth potential. It is easy to see why this is the case, when the 85-mile journey between Oxford and Cambridge currently takes more than two-and-a-half hours by either road or rail, with the latter requiring a change in London.
In its Partnering for Prosperity: a new deal for
Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Arc report, the NIC estimated that based on current trends, the corridor would experience employment growth of 335,000 by 2050, which in turn would boost annual economic output by £ 85bn.
We need to facilitate and unlock economic growth and deliver housing plans in which rail and road infrastructure will play a critical role. Martin Tugwell, Programme Director, England’s Economic Heartland
But it added that the corridor could support a further 700,000 jobs and increase its GVA by £163bn by 2050, if the right interventions were made. These include improved transport links and a 50% increase in the rate of housebuilding to provide one million new homes.
Among the report’s recommendations was a need to accelerate delivery of a £ 3.5bn OxfordCambridge Expressway, and the East West Rail (EWR) project to reinstate the former Varsity Line that closed as a through route in 1967.
It also recommended that Government capitalises on the work already being done by EEH’s Strategic Transport Forum, which was created in February 2016 to work closely with Network Rail, Highways England and the DfT to develop a robust Strategic Transport Plan and explore new rail and road initiatives (see map, opposite).
The Government’s response to the NIC report was to make funding available to Network Rail to complete construction of the EWR’s Western Section between Bicester and Bedford and Milton Keynes and Princes Risborough by 2023-24. An independent East West Rail Company has also been established to explore options for delivering the route’s Central Section between Bedford and Cambridge, with the aim of running services by the mid-2020s.
Progress has also been made on the proposed Expressway between Oxford and Cambridge, with EEH commissioned by Government to undertake a connectivity study.
Tugwell says that future rail franchising will also have a key part to play in realising the NIC’s growth estimates, adding: “If you look at the context of what we’re doing, it’s very much set by the NIC and their report. We need to facilitate and unlock economic growth and deliver housing plans in which rail and road infrastructure will play a critical role.
“What we’re doing is two things. Where there are franchise consultations under way, we are engaging with that process and developing an overarching transport strategy in parallel. We’re committed to having a draft strategy by the end of this year, which we will go out and consult on in early 2019 and then finalise in 2020-21.
“With franchising, we’re telling the DfT that we understand they have to let franchises in the immediate future, but there’s some bigger thinking to be done here to support the new opportunities for growth.
“For instance, in future we’d like to get EWR services extended from Oxford down to Didcot or Swindon, but some of those services are currently operated by Great Western Railway. EWR will become part of the existing jigsaw of services, so we’re taking the bigger picture and looking at how existing franchises equate with what EWR will offer.”
The Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor is currently covered by a large number of franchises, with the Great Western, Chiltern, West Coast, Midland, East Coast and West Anglia Main Lines all running through the region.
Tugwell says it is therefore of paramount importance that all franchises operating on these routes are shaped to reflect the arrival of the new infrastructure and services that EWR will bring, and to cater for the start of a new east-west flow of passengers.
He and his team have already actively fed this message into the West Coast Partnership franchise public consultation which closed in August 2016, and the consultation for the next Great Western franchise that closed on February 21.
He adds: “One of the things the NIC talked about was creating an Oxford-Cambridge spine. But the whole point about a spine is that you have to connect it to the rest of the road and rail network, and so you need to understand how patterns of movement are going to change.
“If you can start to get from Oxford to
East West Rail will become part of the existing jigsaw of services, so we’re taking the bigger picture and looking at how existing franchises equate with what EWR will offer.
Cambridge in just over an hour when at the moment it takes more than twice that by road or rail, this new infrastructure will fundamentally change the way people travel.
“We don’t have a detailed plan yet of what new junctions or stations will be built, but what we do have is a direction of travel, so we need to make sure the next round of franchises is informed by that in the longer term.”
In its formal response to the consultation for the next Great Western franchise (commencing March 2020), EEH’s Strategic Transport Forum Chairman Heather Smith wrote that current DfT proposals to split it in two and create a new West of England franchise for services in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall must be consistent with the delivery of EWR.
She said this would probably require a further review of services in the Oxford and Thames Valley area, and that in the longer term EEH would also be conducting a more wholesale review of whether the entire franchising map for the UK is fit for purpose and will support delivery of the growth potential identified by the NIC.
Tugwell says that piece of work will be commissioned very shortly, with an aim to maximise the impact that EWR will have on connectivity throughout the corridor and beyond.
He explains: “Increasingly, we’ll be asking if we have the right franchising map moving forward, and if we need to think about changing the geography. The answer to that question is probably yes with Great Western, but not in the way the Government has set out to date, because we need to think about how those services fit into EWR, Chiltern and everything else.
“We’re also keen to emphasise that if you build EWR then you also start to open up a north-south corridor between Northampton, Milton Keynes, Aylesbury and potentially Old Oak Common, which brings you into what’s happening on the West Coast Partnership.
“You start to see these pieces joining up, and that’s our role as an emerging STB - to provide the bigger picture to individual franchises and to influence what services are run. We will be commissioning that piece of work very soon, which asks the question about whether the current franchising map is right for us. Most of the existing ones are based around journeys in and out of London, so I suspect not, but we’ll get some specialist advice on that.”
Another franchise consultation with which EEH has been closely involved is for the next East Midlands franchise, due to commence in August 2019. The consultation closed in October 2017, and included controversial proposals to fully segregate commuter flows between London and stations on the Midland Main Line to the south of Kettering, and intercity journeys to destinations further north (including Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield).
The DfT contends that this would increase capacity and reduce journey times to and from the capital for inter-city services. But Tugwell is also conscious that it would inevitably result in passengers at stations including Bedford and Luton losing their direct services to the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.
Those two stations have already lost their peak-time East Midlands Trains-operated services to free up paths for a new Thameslink timetable that begins in May, and Tugwell warns that any further reduction would go against the Government’s stated objective to support economic growth in all parts of the country, not least his own.
“Journey times and capacity is an important factor [for passengers travelling to London from further north], but it’s the consequences of these choices that will affect the ability of people in Bedford, Luton or Northamptonshire to get to the East Midlands,” he says.
“I’ve been to public meetings where people have said ‘I won’t be able to get to work’, and there’s a real danger that some franchise decisions could prevent us from rebalancing
There’s a real danger that some franchise decisions could prevent us from rebalancing the economy and realising some of the opportunities.
the economy and realising some of the opportunities.
“We have a powerful tool with rail services to encourage patterns of travel and to give people choice. I can understand some of the arguments on each side, but you would question the Government’s objective to rebalance the economy when the message you’re sending to businesses deciding on whether to invest in our region is that they can no longer rely on the service they thought was there.”
Steering the conversation back to its bid to become a statutory STB, Tugwell says EEH is currently considering a number of potential models and has sought the views of its members on what powers it should seek from central government.
Once a final proposal has been agreed by members, it will then be put to the Secretary of State for Transport, who has jurisdiction under The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 to establish STBs in any part of the UK outside of London. A vote would then follow in Parliament, so that statutory status and devolved powers can then be agreed in law.
Tugwell indicates a number of areas where what EEH eventually puts to the Transport Secretary is likely to correspond closely with the powers that have been drawn down from government by TfN. These include the legal right to implement a Strategic Transport Plan, and to have its recommendations officially considered by government.
But there could also be some divergence from the TfN model in other areas, such as rail franchising. Here, Tugwell favours a more ‘light touch’ approach for EEH than the joint franchising authority that TfN successfully obtained for the Northern and TransPennine franchises.
He explains: “I don’t think that’s where we’ll be looking to go, because there are a number of franchises that cut across the area in different ways. They serve both our needs and the wider UK needs, so I think it’s more appropriate for those discussions to be had on a national level through the Department.
“All that we’re likely to ask for is that we have a stronger input in overseeing the delivery of the franchises. I don’t want to get into more formal contractual arrangements, but my members want to understand if the franchise is on track to do what it said it would do. That’s important because it sends a message to investors, whether it be businesses or house builders, about where the opportunities are.
“I think you’ll see the core elements [between TfN and EEH] stay consistent, and we’ll both have overarching transport strategies and a role in identifying investment priorities for road and rail. Where you may see some variation is in how involved we become in franchise management, which is going to be a judgement call, and I can see how it becomes much easier where you have relatively selfcontained franchises.
“There’s no one template for STBs, but the legislation gives us the ability to ask for certain things. You don’t need to get the answer right the first time either, as it’s not a once-in-alifetime ask.”
Tugwell is also keen to emphasise that
EEH’s responsibilities as an STB will cover not just improved passenger connectivity, but also the promotion of greater provision for freight. This includes EWR, which has the obvious potential to be used for the movement of material supporting construction of the anticipated one million new homes in the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor.
Unfortunately, it does not look as if EWR’s Western Section will be built with any additional capacity for freight movements, after EWR Alliance Director Dominic Baldwin confirmed in August 2017 ( RAIL 834) that neither this nor electrification were contained in the project scope.
It remains to be seen what the scope will be for EWR’s Central Section, but Tugwell anticipates that passive provision will almost certainly be included.
“We have some of the biggest distributors in the East Midlands and around Milton Keynes, and so there must be more opportunity to move freight by rail. EWR needs to support the growth that’s coming, and I’m reassured in the conversations we’ve been having with the East West Rail Company that they’re not precluding the ability to have freight capacity in the future.
“It will require investment, but I take comfort that they are saying ‘don’t let’s close off doors now if we’re building infrastructure. Has it got the capacity to take more in future?’.
“That’s proper strategic planning, so I’m reassured by the way we’re going with this. We’ll take the first critical step to actually getting the line back, and then we’ll know what we’re building upon, which is very positive.”
Tugwell says that EEH is “probably a third” of the way through its journey to becoming a statutory STB, having been created three years ago and then stepping up a gear in February 2016 with the creation of its Strategic Transport Forum. With plans to finalise its Strategic Transport Plan and its STB proposal for government concurrently by the end of 2019, he is cautiously optimistic that full statutory status will be achieved by 2020-21.
He adds: “There’s a very good reason why we’re doing both of those things in parallel, so that what we ask for as an STB helps us deliver what’s in the strategy.
“With the greatest respect to Whitehall officials, they are simply unable to have as detailed an understanding as we have, which is our added value. We have partners such as Highways England, Network Rail and the train operating companies which all have a role to play, and our role is to align that to a common goal.
“Doing things this way will let people get on with delivering what they are best at without too much chopping and changing, and give people confidence to invest in business and housing. That’s where we’ll make a difference.”