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Transport secretary decries "unreliable" figures for rail upgrade costs

Lee Baker
23 July 2015
 

The transport secretary believes that cost estimates of rail upgrade schemes are unreliable and he put electrification projects on ice to avoid a repeat of the West Coast Main Line overspend.

In a week in which Patrick McLoughlin appeared relaxed about a cost overrun from a Highways England for a strategic road upgrade - albeit still below the upper-range estimates - he told MPs that a "substantial increase" in the cost of Network Rail's £12bn enhancement programme prompted him to halt work to the Midlands Main Line and TransPennine rail link. "Projects have to be delivered on time and to the budget that was originally suggested."

He said that an earlier warning last September of a £2bn cost overrun for the entire programme did not alarm him at the time because some schemes, such at at Reading and Nottingham stations, came in under budget. But he was unable to tell the transport select committee what the "substantial" overrun was, given "they are not accurate figures," as the transcript details.

Graham Stringer MP said: "You are saying that you took a decision to pause two schemes, but you cannot give us the actual figure on which you did it... All you are telling the Committee is that you did not trust the figures."

McLoughlin said that planning permissions had not been obtained, "it was on that basis that I asked for a pause so that a deep dive could be done. I will be able to get back to the committee and to the House in the autumn." He continued to defend Network Rail from "opprobrium in the media" saying that in the Dawlish sea wall scheme they "were the heroes of the hour for getting that line re-opened quickly".

Read more in the latest LTT out soon.

 

 

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