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Sir Michael Holden is right about railway structure ( RAIL 908).
Private or public, an effective rail network must have both an executive ‘guiding mind’ and sufficiently devolved local operation, preferably via regional government.
Unfortunately, current regional structures are a pale shadow of the old metropolitan counties abolished in 1986 and are geographically patchy.
They lack the combined urban and shire coverage of the regional partnerships set up under John Prescott’s attempt to create elected regional assemblies.
Currently, only London, Scotland and Wales have the territorial scope and political structures to fully join up their transport operations and (most importantly) to organise the additional funding required.
COVID-19 has thrown all these weaknesses into sharp relief. A genuine start on creating a workable post-franchised railway would involve the creation of a Regional Transport Authority for each of the eight English regions outside London.
This would create a consistent structure in England to organise and fund regionally commissioned rail and tram services, based on both Treasury funding and local revenue.
Building on the technical work of quangos such as Midlands Connect would be useful, but genuinely regional transport bodies - ultimately answerable to elected assemblies (as in London, Wales and Scotland) - would provide a capacity and accountability currently missing, particularly in rural areas.
Empowered regions could be combined, as Sir Michael suggests, with a national operational structure for rail refocused in an executive agency of the Department for Transport, re-creating (as under British Rail) necessary distance between Government and operations.
Could it happen? It’s hard to see the present government wanting to create the necessary partnership with despised local councils, let alone allow the local democratic control of a regional assembly. But post-pandemic, who knows?
Philip Davis MBE, Birmingham