Great Western Coffee Shop

One and all

Alerted to the recent House of Commons debate on the Great Western Railway, I went in search of the Hansard transcript. 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm160208/debtext/160208-0002.htm#16020817000001 (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm160208/debtext/160208-0002.htm#16020817000001)

It is a 2 + hour debate so takes some reading, but gives an interesting insight into the thinking of some of the South West's MP's, and a rather non commital response from Claire Perry.

Enjoy !

I feel the railways are the favourite kicking horse of the Government and its MPs at the moment, possibly as a diversion tactic to take the focus off of the political shenanigans in Brussels   

A lot of hot air and not much else I am afraid. 

Sounds to me like they are articulating the concerns of a large number of their constituents and trying to improve their situation - that's sort of what they're there for? Fair bit of praise for FGW too.........did you actually read much of it? (Funnily enough I did.....on a delayed train earlier!)  ;D

Yes I did.  It seemed to me to consist of a some justified concerns, some political sniping and nothing of any consequence in the response from the Parliamentary Under Secretary.

I agree they were articulating the concerns of a large number of their constituents.  But nothing came of it.  So just hot air. 

Articulating the concerns of constituents is not hot air.

The government's response (personified by Claire Perry) to those concerns was hot air though.

I confidently predict this government will not start the ball rolling on an alternative route through Devon. By starting, I mean committed funding and a TWA. There will also be no commitment to extend electrification into Devon and Cornwall.

I'm nit sure Corbyn's lot would either?

I agree it shouldn't be. But reading it was put forward as either patting their own side on the back or putting the knife in on the other side and this often seemed more important than the concerns they were supposed to be articulating.  The result was that no coherent argument was put forward and that let the government completely off the hook. 

Devon's railways were only highlighted because Camoron holidays in Cornwall. I doubt his successor will, so once again the South West's transport links will be forgotten.

Although it will be long after I've left this mortal coil, I suspect that there is a bigger chance of railways south west of Bristol being ripped up than there is of the same being electrified.

They can't commit funding or a put a TWA through parliament until they are in power. Would they do so in the next parliament? Far too many hurdles to jump first.

Like getting elected :-)

About the TWA - an order under it is made by the government (the Secretary of State for Transport), and is an alternative to an Act of Parliament for small projects. A big new railway would need an act, but I'm not sure where the boundary lies - somewhere between Airtrack and HS1, but that's a big gap. Usually the application comes from a public body, but the SoS can make an order without one if so moved.

But, in that Hansard report, all I could hear was the clanking sound of iron hobby-horses being ridden, and the pinging of point-scoring politically-shot peas off them.

Oxford to Bicester and the curve were done under a TWA and I believe so is the upgrading of the line to Bletchley.

There also the Development Consent Order procedure now.  Used for the Norton Bridge bypass alignment on the WCML near Stafford.

I think in hindsight the use of the TWA for the whole of Chiltern's project has been seen to be a mistake, they should probably have used permitted development rights for works rebuilding the existing railway.

I read somewhere that the TWA application for Bicester to Bedford will be more targeted on just what really needs it.

Paul

Yes, that is what EWR told the OBRAG AGM recently. TWA only where required

I'm sure it was a mistake, and I was puzzled at the outset as to why they went down that route. 

The DCO approach does appear to be more effective too. As an example, look at the problems being had with the Ordsall Chord.  However, in that instance NR did submit a DCO but then the rules changed in 2013 and it was no longer deemed significant enough, so they had to withdraw the application and start again with a TWAO. If they had been allowed to continue with the DCO it would all have been decided by mid 2014, as there is a very strict 12 month timetable to follow in terms of evidence and decision.

A DCO is about planning permission. A TWA is not, explicitly so; it allows private and public rights to be set aside - for example by compulsory purchase. When a TWAO is made, the government can grant planning consent itself as well, if it wants to. However, any rail project that involves 2 km or more of new track is an "NSIP" (nationally significant infrastructure project) for which a DCO is now mandatory. So it looks as if you may need both. How a special act of parliament fits into the planning regime I do not know - I think that gets specified in the act.

Of course a lot of the considerations are relevant to planning and to whatever the TWA deals with. (Does it have a name? In some ways it's our equivalent of the formal step the French have, a d^claration d'utilit^ publique.) No doubt it keeps the lawyers amused disentangling (or further entangling) these strands.

On closer examination, all of these planning and other consents have been thoroughly mixed up for a while, so it is really only a matter of scale. For smaller schemes they come from the same place (the local council) and for bigger ones from the government and Planning Inspectorate (who do TWAOs too now).

There's been a lot of tinkering with planning rules recently. It was the recent order (The Highway and Railway (Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project) Order 2013) that set the boundary between TWAOs and DCOs by amending the Planning Act 2008 to read:

that's for construction; for alterations it's the same mutatis mutandis .