Local Rail Services (Bristol)

Norman Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on securing this debate, and my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) and for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on contributing to it. The subject is important and timely.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West set out with great clarity the importance of the rail network in Bristol to the local economy, and how it can contribute to helping to address congestion problems in and around the city. She said that Bristol is the gateway to the south-west, and the Government fully recognise that in our planned investment in the inter-city rail network to Bristol. Indeed, it would not be possible to discuss local rail issues—I will return to them later—without referring to the significant developments that are planned for the network over the next five to 10 years, and which will transform Bristol’s links with London and the south-east.

The announcement that the Great Western main line between London, Bristol and Cardiff will be electrified has been warmly welcomed in the west of England, and I am pleased to hear hon. Members’ support for that project today. The line will be equipped with brand new inter-city express trains, and the current proposal is for four trains an hour to run between Bristol and London, two an hour via Bath and Chippenham and two an hour via Bristol Parkway. Those via Bristol Parkway will transform the links between the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West and London, given the proximity of Bristol Parkway station.

Both routes into Bristol will be electrified and, with electrification of the Severn tunnel route through to Cardiff, three of the local routes—Cardiff to Bristol, Bristol Parkway to Bristol, and Bath to Bristol—will be able to accommodate electric trains. There are no plans to electrify the line to Weston-super-Mare or the Severn Beach line. However, because some of the new inter-city trains will be bi-mode trains and able to run on electric or diesel power, some inter-city trains will continue to operate to Weston-super-Mare, as they do today, and will switch seamlessly—at least, I hope so—from electric to diesel power at Bristol Temple Meads.

Another recent announcement is significant for the area. The Secretary of State has announced that the Thameslink route through London will receive new rolling stock from about 2015. That means that, as far as Bristol is concerned, there will be a pool of electric rolling stock available to operate some Bristol area local rail services should the operator of the new Great Western franchise choose to use them. I realise that capacity is an issue. We are currently negotiating with First Great Western for provision of additional diesel carriages, but I cannot confirm at the moment when they will arrive or what the exact number will be. However, the prospect of electric trains will ease the position considerably.

I said that this debate is timely, and there are three reasons. First, detailed planning of the electrification scheme is now under way, and there may be opportunities to add to the scheme better to meet the needs of the local area if funding can be identified locally. Secondly, First Great Western has recently announced that it is taking up the option that the previous Government made available to it under the terms of the franchise of terminating it in 2013 rather than 2016. Therefore, detailed work will have to be carried out on the specification for the new franchise. Local authorities need to be ready to input into the process, and to discuss their ideas with bidders when they emerge in due course. For the avoidance of doubt, we welcome local people’s views of the new franchise arrangements which we are putting in place throughout the country. Thirdly, we are keen to explore the scope for devolving further aspects of rail to local authorities, and a good time to do so is when a franchise is due for renewal and the area is set to benefit from major investment.

The electrification scheme creates major opportunities for the local rail network around Bristol. Electric trains are cleaner, quieter and have better acceleration than diesel trains, so they are ideally suited to providing local rail services in densely used urban areas. The journey-to-work area in Bristol is expanding, as my hon. Friends know only too well, so now is the time for the local authorities to consider how the local rail network can be adapted to maximise the benefits of electrification. That may require some reconfiguration of local services, but the local authorities are well placed to understand passengers’ needs. For example, we are aware that the West of England Partnership is keen to see the local rail service extended from Bristol Parkway to Yate. We would welcome local input into matters such as whether a short extension of electrification from Westerleigh Junction to Yate would offer value for money. Likewise, new stations have been suggested for the Bath route, and now is the time for the partnership to consider such issues.

We are keen that proposals for infrastructure enhancement are robust and based on sound evidence. It is in nobody’s interest to promote unsustainable or undeliverable schemes or schemes that have little chance of securing funding. It is therefore important that work is undertaken to understand the viability of those options. I want to make it clear that the Government are pro-rail. We have a major programme of investment in the rail network. Indeed, it is reasonable to conclude without hyperbole that our rail investment programme is the biggest since the Victorian era.

In the Bristol area, the local authorities work closely together as the West of England Partnership. Although they are free to consider whether there might be benefits in forming an integrated transport authority—my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West referred to that, and some people believe that there would be significant benefits—it is not essential that they do so for the purposes of securing improvements or investment in local rail services. If local people want to consider forming an ITA, we will pay close attention to that. The partnership has a number of plans for rail, and there are no institutional barriers preventing them from achieving them.

We are keen to see the local authority partnership aligned with the local enterprise partnership, and together to play a leading role in determining the future of the local rail network. For example, that structure could deal with the safeguarding of Plot 6 at Bristol Temple Meads. The West of England Partnership already takes an active role in transport, and has established a rail protocol with train operators and Network Rail. I understand that the local enterprise partnership has plans for regeneration around Temple Meads station.

The West of England Partnership has created the concept of a Bristol metro network of regular-frequency local rail services, and has been very supportive of North Somerset council’s efforts to reopen the Portishead line. The next step will be to identify how those enhancements could be delivered and, more importantly, funded. The reopening of that line would require the reopening of passenger services on a freight-only line from Parson Street junction to Portbury junction, and the reinstatement of track from Portbury junction to a new station at Portishead. Our rough estimate is that reopening would cost £35 million to £40 million. Steps are obviously under way to make Network Rail more efficient, and to drive down costs, but that is our present estimate. Such a move would require the provision of new train services, perhaps every half hour during peak times and every hour off-peak. At the moment, that would need an ongoing subsidy, which is an important consideration when working out the economics of any reopening.

Reference was made to the possibility of reopening the line to passenger services between Avonmouth and Filton Abbey Wood. That would create a north Bristol circle line that would run from Temple Meads via Clifton Down to Avonmouth, and back to Temple Meads via a reopened Henbury station. I am sure that such a circle line would be more reliable than the one I use on a regular basis, which runs not far from this Chamber.

[Stephen Williams]

I share the vision of that north Bristol circle line with my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie). It would also provide the opportunity for new stations along that route. My hon. Friend mentioned some stations that she would like in her constituency, and I will add Ashley Hill station to that list. It would be on the Filton Bank line and serve about 20,000 residents either side of where the station used to be—the platform is still there. It would also serve Gloucestershire cricket club and Fairfield high school.

[Norman Baker]

My hon. Friend has long campaigned very strongly on these issues and I welcome his involvement. Objectively, if we are to reopen a line it is a good idea to attract as many passengers as possible, and the provision of extra stations could be a useful way to achieve that. A cost-benefit analysis would be carried out for each station to look at whether reopening it would make sense to the project as a whole. My hon. Friend has given several examples of why he believes that would be the case for the station that he mentioned.

Although the line between Filton Abbey Wood and Bristol is intact, we would need to increase its capacity, and Network Rail is considering how to accommodate the extra trains. There would also be the question of how to serve the branch line from St Andrews road to Severn Beach. In the first instance, the West of England Partnership will determine whether that scheme should be a priority, although to date it has provided no indication that it would seek to explore that proposal, given that the Bristol metro and the Portishead line appear to be higher priorities. Hon. Members from the Bristol area may wish to pursue that point with the West of England Partnership. Bristol city council funds additional services on the Severn Beach line, which has contributed to a significant growth in the usage of the line. Perhaps that model could be employed elsewhere in the area.

Let me take the opportunity to congratulate the community rail partnership. It has done tremendous work in improving stations, promoting the network around Bristol and, importantly, involving local people in its schemes. That has produced a tremendous sense of pride and ownership in the local rail network. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Transport recently visited the line and was impressed with the achievements of the community rail partnership. She was keen for me to refer to those achievements in my remarks today.

Conditions already exist for local authorities to take on greater responsibility for local rail services. The Department for Transport will be happy to discuss ways of achieving that with those local authorities, and help as best it can. As I have already mentioned, there may be scope to modify the electrification scheme to take account of local needs and aspirations, and as we have seen, local authorities are already able to finance rail services and schemes using funds available for local transport. We believe it is important that decisions on local priorities are made by local authorities rather than central Government, so there are currently no plans to establish a central fund for local rail schemes. Instead, local authorities should identify which local funding sources are most appropriate for a rail scheme, and decide whether such a scheme should have a higher priority than, for example, a highway or bus scheme.

Although the coalition Government’s current priority must be to reduce the budget deficit, we are making available a significant amount of money—£560 million—through the local sustainable transport fund. That is more money for local transport than was provided over the past four-year period, despite the difficult economic climate that we face. We are also making a contribution to the regional growth fund to enable some schemes to proceed before 2014. All that is in addition to the major local transport schemes budget, and in September the West of England Partnership will make five bids to the Department for schemes linked to the development pool. We will make decisions on those schemes around Christmas. The area has already had one scheme approved for the Greater Bristol bus network, which is nearing completion. The West of England Partnership has made a key component bid and a large project initial proposal to the local sustainable transport fund, and an announcement on the key component bid will be made shortly.

We will soon be consulting on a more devolved approach to major local schemes that will be in place from April 2015. Such an approach will provide the opportunity for groups of local authorities, working with local enterprise partnerships, to consider once again the transport priorities for their area that the fund might help to meet. That is particularly important for the reopening of the Portishead line, which has been frequently mentioned in this debate, through correspondence with the Department, and in other forums.

The aspiration is to reopen that line by 2017, but it is essential to first establish that that is the best way to meet the needs of the area and a priority for investment among other potentially competing claims. The local authority has carried out important work with Network Rail through the governance for railway investment projects process—GRIP. It also, however, needs to establish demand for the scheme and to demonstrate that there is a business case and that ongoing financial support is affordable. Initially, that must be demonstrated locally and not by the Department. We will respond to that local pressure.

To conclude, electrification brings opportunities for improvements to the local rail network around Bristol. There is an important role for local authorities, working together through the West of England Partnership, to carry on the good work and seize the initiative by taking advantage of such schemes. The Department will be happy to provide advice and guidance to hon. Members, councillors and others in the Bristol area, to ensure that people are able to maximise the opportunities in their area. Ultimately, however, it is for local people to lead on such matters, and the Department will have a supportive role.