That title is not intended to be quite as bold as it sounds; I don’t have a magic wand, and there is quite a bit to fix. It’s more about where the focus needs to be if we are to find a cost-effective way of making rail an enabler of economic growth across the country. Place has to be at the heart of this.
I’ve been reflecting on how transport services in the UK, particularly those for passengers, can help us meet the various goals we have as a nation. I wrote a blog about this very topic back in January 2021, titled Transport on the verge of re-boot. That highlighted the need to address efficiencies, inclusion, customers, decarbonisation and levelling up. All of those remain true, but the context has changed a tad over the intervening 3+ years.
The Williams Rail Review in 2019 eventually led to publication of the draft Rail Reform Bill. And that came out on the same day as the annual Bradshaw Address, which had both the Rail Minister and the Labour Shadow Rail Minister setting out their respective party’s intentions to set up Great British Railways. Both were quite aligned on some of the underlying ways this would progress, with one notable exception around the role of the private sector. Labour put more flesh on the bone in publishing Getting Britain Moving in April 2024. That announcement, and the public versus private point continues to attract much discussion.
However, I want to highlight the importance of a place-led approach to multiple parts of defining and then delivering the best rail service. The place agenda breaks down into three areas – design, manage and integrate.
Design. The starting point is the role of regional bodies. I’m intentionally not distinguishing here between devolved bodies, sub-national transport bodies, combined authorities or local authorities. There is a role here in making sure there is a local voice in investment decisions, timetables and ideally fares.
Manage. Establishing something the size and scale of GBR will require a means of breaking things down, both by service area (track and train at the basic level) but also by geography. And geography in this context is tricky. The appropriate geography for managing infrastructure will differ from that required to define a train operator’s running patterns, and then there’s a further difference when thinking about travel to work areas.
Integrate. The final place-led consideration gets more into the operational railway, and in particular how it supports enhancement of the locations it serves and how the real estate opportunity is maximised. Put simply, this means making the best of stations, to serve rail travellers, to connect with other modes of travel and to integrate with other services in the neighbourhood. It also means taking advantage of the ‘transit over-development’ real estate opportunity afforded by the station and its obvious ready access to excellent transport connections.
Finding a way of bringing local interests into what is, essentially, a national networked service is not straightforward. But the benefits of getting that blend of inputs into how rail services are defined and run are significant. It is going to be key in delivering something that truly can underpin the transformation of places across the country.
