Private Crossings (Signs and Barriers) Regulations 2023

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

That this House regrets that the Private Crossings (Signs and Barriers) Regulations 2023, while providing improved safety and visibility designs, do not set out the need, timing and costs for private crossing owners to replace existing signs.

Relevant document: 2nd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to move this Motion, which many noble Lords will think is not the most important thing facing the country at this stage. Unfortunately, when the original draft regulations were put down, those of us who have a liking for and an interest in railways, in particular private railways—some of them are steam railways—we found that no consideration was given to the costs, the timing or even the need for putting up new notices every time there was a crossing. I am grateful to Ministers for having upgraded some of the Explanatory Memoranda on this, but it is worth spending a few minutes explaining what the problem is and why I think a little more could be done.

The first thing to say is what the scope of the regulations is not: it is not public roads; it is private roads. It might be a private footpath but, as Regulation 2 says, it can be

“a private road … a private path; or … both”.

Who is the crossing operator? These days, most crossings are operated by Network Rail—there are a few private and other railways that we know about. I am told that Network Rail is happy with this—probably because it did not have much choice—but it is a good thing, and it will probably get some extra funding from the Department for Transport to enable it to change the signs.

In case noble Lords are wondering what it is all about, there are 30 pages in the regulations of pictures of signs that have to be put up on private roads or paths when they cross a railway line. One can debate whether it is time to put some obligation on the users of the crossing—by that, I mean car drivers, cyclists and pedestrians—to take some responsibility for looking before they cross. We are all told in the Highway Code that we must look before we cross the road, but it sometimes seems as if, on the railways, you just cross and if the train is coming, it is the train’s fault. We can debate that. Anyway, these regulations and my Motion do not really cover that, so I shall move on.

I want to talk about heritage railways, which will find it much more difficult to fund all the notices that they will have to put up because they are charities. At the moment, the heritage sector is suffering quite a lot post Covid and from the recession and everything else. My question to the Minister, therefore, is: how often must this really apply to the heritage sector? My noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester—who sadly cannot be here today—has been very strong in his opposition to the way that the regulations have been introduced. I know that he would be keen to contribute significantly to this debate, but he had something else that was equally important.

We are talking about a crossing, be it pedestrian or farm—it is a track; it is not a road owned or maintained by a local authority—of a railway line. There is a requirement to put up a very large number of signs to warn people that a train might be coming and what they have to do. The new Explanatory Memorandum is now helpful: it says that the Government want all the signs to be put up by 2029. That seems a long way away but, when you are running a charity and have problems getting passengers to pay the fares, problems with coal, or all the other things that you have to do, that is not very long. You might be able to do it voluntarily. It is quite clear in paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum, however, that:

“Heritage railways and tram operators responsible for private level crossings will be expected to fund the roll out of new signs themselves”.


So, my question is: what happens if they do not? Who will enforce it? Will the police or the Office of Rail and Road come along? Who will get fined?

We then see, at paragraph 7.5, that actually it is all voluntary. If you have a sign up already that complies with the regulations in Section 52 of the Transport and Works Act 1992, those signs will remain legal, and so you do not have to do it after all. The question then becomes: who is going to decide this?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the large number of noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. We covered a wide range of level crossings and railways, and many other issues. It is worth reminding ourselves that my Motion related only to heritage lines and to crossings which were not public roads—it included public footpaths and agricultural crossings, and things like that.

Taking that into account, I think we have had some very interesting statistics produced. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe has been very helpful to the House in reminding us of the ALARP principle, and the need for ensuring that proportionality, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned, is related to whatever letter or guidance comes next from the Minister on this subject. Those of us who have been involved with heritage railways are often told about the amount of paperwork that the Office of Rail and Road or other people require to be produced; this will add a bit more paperwork to it. On the other hand, if the Minister accepts many of the comments that have been made and produces guidance which is proportionate to this threat and the risk, then I think we will have made some progress tonight.

I have no regrets about putting down this Motion, and I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.