MPs warn lessons need to be learned from £7bn Thameslink programme delays for successful delivery of HS2
The government must learn lessons from the £7bn Thameslink programme delays – particularly with complex work on HS2 looming – MPs warned today.
The £7bn Thameslink upgrade is “yet another example of a rail project which has been delayed and will cost the taxpayer more than originally expected”, MPs on the Public Accounts Committee said in a report out this morning.
The review, published ahead of an evidence session next week for the Committee’s inquiry into the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern rail franchise, warned that “critical tests” were looming for the Department for Transport (DfT) and Network Rail – “not least the redevelopment of Euston station for High Speed 2”.
Read more: HS2 chooses Lendlease to develop “a masterplan” for Euston revamp
Public Accounts Committee chair Meg Hillier, said the redevelopment of Euston station for the high-speed rail project will be more complex than “the budget-busting work to prepare London Bridge for Thameslink”.
The report said delivery of the Thameslink programme had progressed well since its last examination in 2013, but there were still “substantial challenges” that needed to be managed.
The Thameslink upgrade includes infrastructure works in central London managed be Network Rail, and bringing in 115 new trains.
The Whitehall spending watchdog said in November that the full introduction of the new services that would double the number of Thameslink trains running through the capital, had been delayed by a year to December 2019.
Today Hillier, said:
Passengers and the practicalities of running services should be at the heart of public transport planning.
On Thameslink these considerations came too late and government faced a stark choice: delay the roll-out of services or risk additional disruption on the network. Either way, passengers lose out.
Taxpayers have also taken a hit elsewhere, with budget increases on Thameslink contributing to other rail projects being abandoned.
She said the government’s performance on recent rail infrastructure projects had been poor.
In the future, the Committee recommended, the DfT and Network Rail should establish clear arrangements at the beginning of programmes to plan how services will be introduced and run. MPs have asked the DfT to write to the Committee with details on how it plans to create “better working relationships” between Network Rail and operators.
A DfT spokesperson said:
The government-sponsored £7bn Thameslink programme is an ambitious 10-year programme of extensive infrastructure enhancements, new trains and a new timetable on one of the busiest and most congested parts of the rail network, and passengers are already benefitting from capacity increases on routes.
The most recent independent assurance review assessed HS2’s readiness to award the major works civil contracts and concluded that the HS2 organisation is ready and fully capable of effectively delivering these key contracts.
Read more: MPs to scrutinise Thameslink programme after completion delayed by a year