Network Rail get it wrong again

I am going to scream if I ever see the planning system blamed again for delays and cost increases to GW electrification. In November 2017 Modern Railways carried an article about rebuilding a bridge to allow electrification, and suggested that ‘obtaining planning consents has been a major drag on the process’. A standard ‘bureaucracy gets in the way of modernisation’ story?

But hang on a minute! The bridge in question at Steventon was listed in 1988, and electrification was authorised in 2009, so why has the need for Listed Building Consent come as such a surprise?

As a chartered planner I am exasperated. I’ve worked in rail and light rail for several decades and regularly deal with planning applications, Conservation Areas, Listed Buildings and landscape designations. The range of planning consents and the time and effort needed to get them has barely changed in my time in the profession. British town planning is a permissive system that needs consultation, negotiation, and balancing of different interests. Local and national town planners are aware of the needs of the rail industry, want to encourage investment, and compromise is usually possible.

A good example is the elegant OHLE design achieved for the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick. This is a very historic structure (Grade I listed – the highest possible, and much higher level of protection that Steventon) in an historically important but windy setting. Lengthy and sometimes difficult negotiations were needed between British Rail and the Royal Fine Arts Commission and other stakeholders, but a solution was negotiated. ECML electrification went ahead on time and budget and the results look good.

Contrast this with OHLE installed between Reading and Didcot through the statutory North Wessex Downs and Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Despite the legal requirement for Network Rail to ‘have regard to the purpose of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the AONB’, and a 2013 commitment to consult the AONB Board over OHLE design, Network Rail ploughed ahead with some of the most horrendous structures imaginable. This has created predictable outrage and Network Rail have had to commit to review the design. The result is terrible for everyone. Either tens of millions of pounds will be wasted replacing OHLE, or the AONB will be blighted for ever. And we haven’t even mentioned the lack of sensitivity, panic and consequent ill-feeling over electrification through Bath.

What has changed since East Coast electrification seems to be the skills, attitude and project planning competence of our atomised rail industry. Leaving aside the arrogance of relying on Permitted Development Rights for electrification, all the town planning consents needed were predictable. They could and should have been programmed in when GW electrification was approved in 2009. Yet unbelievably and unforgivably, eight years later, Steventon Bridge still doesn’t have a planning solution, let alone a Listed Building Consent. I despair.