News in brief...
testing. GB Railfreight will support Hitachi Rail Europe through the compatibility process in preparation for the start of testing in March 2015.
New Merseyside depot for TFPE First TransPennine Express, which operates rail services across the north of England and into Scotland has opened a £60 million traincare depot in Liverpool city centre. The result of an investment in new trains, the depot will facilitate a brand new timetable from May 2014 offering faster, more frequent journeys and improved regional connections. FTPE has operated services to and from Liverpool since 2004 but this is the first time the company has had a Merseyside office and staff location, creating 42 local jobs.
Unite corrects Crossrail claims on blacklisting On the day that sacked Crossrail electrician Frank Morris was reinstated, there was more email crossfire at dawn between Crossrail and the Unite union, after Crossrail sent a release titled 'Unite drops claims of blacklisting on Crossrail project'. Unite quickly shot back with a statement: 'Whilst we cannot comment on the resolved dispute surrounding Frank Morris, it is important to correct Crossrail's press release which wrongly states that Unite has said there has been no blacklisting at Crossrail. What Unite clearly said is that there have been no breaches of the current regulations. We believe this indicates the weakness of the current legislation.'
Canal Tunnels join network Two Canal Tunnels in north London, which run between the East Coast Main Line near King’s Cross station and the Thameslink route at St
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, in a speech to the Institute of Civil Engineers, cited new research from KPMG which sets out how HS2 could boost the economy by up to £15 billion per year, and says that the regions will be the biggest winners from the project.
The research, commissioned by HS2 Ltd, gives a breakdown of the economic benefits for each HS2 region, with variations in the impact on particular regions depending on assumptions as to the competition between regions and how sensitive businesses are to differences in costs between places. It shows for example that HS2 will give the Birmingham city region a yearly economic boost equivalent to 2.1 - 4.2 per cent of it’s GDP. For Manchester city region the figure is 0.8 - 1.7 per cent, for Leeds city region, 1.6 per cent and for Greater London 0.5 per cent. Richard Threlfall, KPMG’s head of Infrastructure, Building and Construction, commented: ‘There have been repeated calls for a business case for HS2 focused on jobs, productivity and growth. KPMG’s analysis shows that HS2 brings net benefits to the country of many times the scheme’s cost. It shows the UK will be £15 billion a year better off with HS2, recovering the cost of the scheme within just a few years. He continued: ‘Our analysis also shows that HS2 will significantly help counter the corrosive effects on our country of the widening north-south divide. There has been a long-running debate about ‘who wins’ from HS2, the north or the south? The answer is both.’ Drawing on analysis of how
connectivity influences productivity and competitiveness today, KPMG says its report looks at the potential benefits of HS2 in a different way to those captured in more traditional appraisals. Lewis Atter, KPMG lead on Infrastructure said: ‘It looks beyond the time savings of HS2 to the impact on the real economy in terms of GDP and therefore also tax generated for the exchequer. Adding
Page 8 October 2013
£15 billion a year to the UK economy is like creating an economy the size of Cambridgeshire or Oxfordshire, without reducing the size of anywhere else. Given the proportion of GDP that flows to the exchequer, this means more than £5 billion a year in extra tax receipts, more than enough to cover the long-term costs of the project to the taxpayer.’
Lap-top effect a red herring Atter said that KPMG’s research also shows that once the focus is what HS2 can do for the economy, ‘the debate around the ‘lap-top’ effect turns out to be a red herring’. ‘Yes it’s true,’ he said, ‘that because it is possible to use a train a little bit like a mobile office, saving time on a journey isn’t as important as it once was, but it also means that the value of rail connections to the economy has gone up and will rise over time. HS2 is not just about speed it is also about new capacity and the ability to provide those ‘mobile office’ benefits to more businesses, between more places at higher levels of frequency.’
(See Institute of Directors column page 45)
More recognition of rail freight needed Commenting on the KPMG report, John Smith, managing director of GB Railfreight, said:‘The government has given considerable attention to the impact that HS2 will have on rail passengers but not enough time and energy has been spent considering the economic value of rail freight in the debate.
‘The report is an important step in recognising the wider benefits of the high-speed network.
‘By freeing up rail freight capacity
on the West Coast Main Line, HS2 has the potential to radically transform the volume of goods moved around the country, resulting in a much-needed increase in UK productivity, an energetic growth in our exports market and relief for our congested road system.’
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