Enhancements cut

NR infrastructure spending reduced by £1bn, but it will not affect everyday repairs, maintenance and renewals.

It is not possible to say where the £1 billion cuts will fall.

The industry is waiting for a ‘pipeline’ list of enhancement projects to be published next spring. But the lack of certainty or a clear long-term strategy for these schemes has been widely criticised.

Railway Industry Association Chief Executive Darren Caplan said: “The simple fact is that we don’t know what the impact will be because the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline has not been updated since 2019.

“We don’t have sight of what projects are coming up. We were told earlier this year that there are more than 80 projects in the pipeline. It is unclear what schemes will be going ahead and what will not be.”

Network Rail Chairman Sir

Peter Hendy CBE added: “We don’t currently have a long-term pipeline, so we don’t know what enhancements that £1bn would buy.

“It’s a bit overblown. In Control Period 6, enhancements were not part of the settlement. We were told they would be approved project by project. With a bit of effort, and realising not everybody will get everything they want, I think we will be all right.”