Railways: Bridge Strikes

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reduce the risk of vehicles hitting railway bridges in order to improve rail passenger safety and reduce disruption.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, reducing bridge strikes involves interventions from the owners of bridges—usually Network Rail—highways authorities and the owners and operators of vehicles. Network Rail raises driver awareness and offers advice on avoiding low bridges. It has published Prevention of Bridge Strikes: A Good Practice Guide on GOV.UK.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that Answer and I commend the work that Network Rail has done, but my Question arises from an incident in Plymouth, on bank holiday Monday, which closed the west of England line for three days and affected tens of thousands of passengers, when a Tesco lorry hit a bridge. According to Network Rail, 43% of drivers do not know the height of their lorries. That is pretty frightening. According to Network Rail again, there are something like five bridge bashes every day, and clearly there will be occasions when there could be very serious accidents. Will the Minister, in addition to supporting Network Rail’s work, encourage it to claim all the costs from every bridge bash, including the cost of delays to trains, the cost of rebuilding and of course the cost of the delays to passengers? At the moment, it is costing the taxpayer £23 million a year, which seems rather a lot of money.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not wholly sure where the noble Lord got the figure of £23 million a year, but I would point out that costs are not necessarily met by the taxpayer; it depends on the circumstances. If liability rests with a vehicle driver, the costs will be recovered through insurance, and Network Rail has been successful in recovering large amounts for both infrastructure repair and compensation in the past.