This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
CIVIL ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTION


Terry Hill CBE is one of the country’s leading engineers, after his leading role on the HS1 project and his many years with Arup, and now his membership of the Infrastructure UK advisory council and the Crossrail board. He speaks to RTM about our national priorities.


T


erry Hill, one of the leading lights be- hind Britain’s only current high-speed


line, HS1, is passionate about engineering – but also about transport.


He told RTM that, as a country, we have a “desperate need” to improve our infrastruc- ture, and maintained that the levels of capi- tal investment needed across our major rail projects alone will be more than worth it.


He said the UK is “certainly right” to pri- oritise capital spending on infrastructure – even at a time when revenue budgets are being squeezed severely – but added: “As a country, we’ve still got a lot to do – and we’re not the most effi cient at doing it – but there is a desperate need to improve our in- frastructure.”


Speeding it up


Compared to most European and Asian countries, Britain often comes under fi re for our lethargic infrastructure approval process: and indeed, of our two biggest rail projects, Crossrail has been around in one form or another for decades, and it will be decades yet until anyone catches a high- speed train from London to Birmingham. But we are a relatively small and crowded country, with city centres of immense his- torical importance, a planning system that favours precision over speed (and, some joke, favours newts and bats over almost everything), and,


historically, Govern-


ments desperate to do the opposite of what- ever the previous Government wanted.


But there is optimism in the air, with the founding of a number of associations and high-level bodies aimed at promoting in- frastructure, and an apparent commitment to major projects at the heart of the Coali- tion Government.


At a more specifi c level, Network Rail is at- tempting to radically improve its project delivery, by bringing in suppliers and con- tractors at a much earlier stage, and mak- ing the process much smoother, having put a number of trusted suppliers on ‘stand-by’, based on region, meaning they can start work much earlier.


Hill praised this initiative, saying: “It’s a 30 | rail technology magazine Aug/Sep 11


sensible idea. I’ve spent an awful lot of my career with this industry that I’ve been involved in being quite adversarial. There have been quite a lot of disputes on all sides.


“But, probably over the last 10 or 15 years, we are now just seeing a move to having far more partnering approaches to how we can do things. Because quite honestly, we’re all after the same thing: we’re all actually try- ing to improve the infrastructure that the nation needs, and I think Network Rail is understanding that too, and is going in that direction. You know, you really don’t get any advantages out of spending so much en- ergy on being adversarial and I think when you’ve got bright and intelligent people sat on both sides of the table, focused on de- livering infrastructure, then you can get an awful lot done.”


Parkways


One less welcome trend in the rail industry is the increasing use of – and need for – out-of-town parkway stations, which sim- plify things in some senses, but also negate


a prime advantage that rail has over other forms of long-distance travel. It now seems likely that HS2 will depend on at least some out-of-town stations, especially in the East Midlands region.


Hill said: “Of course there are some specifi c examples where it is useful having an out- of-town station – Birmingham Internation- al, for example, which attaches straight to the country’s biggest exhibition centre and the international airport, you can see that. But generally, railways score over aviation by city centre penetration, and when you have a parkway, you’re in danger of getting people into their car to get there and quite honestly once they’re in their car they might as well stay in it for their whole journey.


“I’m not saying there aren’t particular ex- amples; there probably are some where it’s worthwhile having them. But, I think it is possible to vastly improve city centre rail interchange locations without widespread demolition or anything like that at all. Just by clever and smart design, we can actually make sure that we maintain that city centre presence of railways.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92