Transport Scotland’s Rail Director BILL REEVE briefs PHILIP SHERRATT on plans for the five-year funding period north of the border
For Scotland, the start of Control Period 6 on 1 April is a case of ‘back to the future’. As the UK Government is doing, rail enhancements will be adopting a pipeline approach, rather than a list of schemes being stated as the funding period begins, albeit Scotland’s pipeline has a slightly different mechanic to that of the Westminster Government.
Transport Scotland’s Rail Director Bill Reeve points out that this was the approach used north of the border prior to CP5, but it was suggested in discussions with the regulator that projects should be specified with pre-determined costs at the outset to be included in the overall CP5 settlement. ‘We weren’t fully persuaded of the merits, and the lesson is that we were right to have reservations’ says Mr Reeve. ‘We’ve not faced the scale of problems seen elsewhere in Britain during CP5 – we’ve not cancelled any enhancement projects, we’ve not bust our budget and we’ve not had to postpone or defer any renewals. But we remain convinced commitment to schemes should take place only after an appropriate level of development and that …
