Among the many items that never warranted even a passing mention in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget last week were significant railway infrastructure schemes, which some economists believe should get support and so help get the economy moving at full steam ahead.
One of the projects that should be up for urgent consideration is the Selhurst Bottleneck, more formally known as the Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme, one of several projects to be crushed between the twin pressures of Tory government “levelling up” policy (ha!) and covid.
There are economists who do believe that, with a decent amount of public investment, the government and its agencies can build our way to economic growth. Ben Hopkinson, the head of research at think tank Britain Remade, has made the case that CARS – the acronym coined by Network Rail when they were looking at unblocking the Selhurst bottleneck six years ago – should be dusted off to provide some much-needed investment in this patch of south London.
In July, Reeves cancelled the Restoring Your Railway fund, so that now all rail projects have to undergo stand alone reviews before they receive funding.
Hopkinson has written about Selhurst and four other projects that will boost growth. He wanted to see them all included in the Budget.
“Despite the gloomy fiscal situation, there are infrastructure projects that would provide much needed connectivity and growth,” Hopkinson wrote on his Substack site.
“If the new Labour government is as committed to growth as they say they are, we shouldn’t kick good, viable projects into the weeds. The Budget is a chance to show this commitment to get Britain building again.
Unblocking the bottleneck: it is more than six years since Network Rail’s CARS scheme was first put out for consultation. If implemented, it could transform rail journeys between London and the south coast
“The Labour government also has the opportunity to make funding future projects easier, by borrowing a tool from the Victorians who built our railways in the first place. The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government should modify its 2017 guidance on the 2016 Housing and Planning Act, which limited the number of homes that could be jointly consented with a Development Consent Order to 500.
“The Victorians funded many of the railways that we still rely on today by building new homes, towns, and industries alongside new tracks. We should do the same, and link up future rail projects with the building of new homes.”
And Hopkinson identified the Selhurst Bottleneck as a contender for that kind of borrow-to-invest approach, for all of the reasons cited in 2018 when Network Rail was seeking approval for the project.
“The area around Croydon is the busiest, most congested, and most complex part of Britain’s rail network, with 30% more passengers passing through each day than Euston and King’s Cross stations combined,” Hopkinson has written.
“The complex series of junctions and insufficient capacity at East Croydon can lead to cascading issues and limits the capacity of the network to the south of London.
“To solve these problems, Network Rail has proposed the Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme. The programme would add two platforms at East Croydon, supporting the ongoing regeneration of the area, and build new viaducts, bridges and dive-unders to avoid trains having to wait to pass through the junction just north of the station.
“In two consultations run in 2018 and 2020, 90% of respondents supported the proposals.
“Alongside the increased resilience and punctuality of the railway, the upgrade could allow for an additional eight trains per hour in each direction. Plus CARS forms a part of the upgrades necessary to support the metroisation of commuter rail in south London, which TfL is keen to pursue.
“Yet the scheme wasn’t funded by the last government because of the desire to move railway investment to the North in the failed Network North Command Paper after the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester.
“The Labour government has an opportunity to get the project back on track.”
Read more: 39 trains are stopped in the Croydon Bottleneck in two hours
Read more: MP backs Network Rail plans to unblock Croydon bottleneck
Read more: Brighton mainline rail improvements to be axed in Tory cuts
Read more: East to go North – Network Rail wants to move a whole station
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There was talk of this when I commuted to London on the early 1980s
Is CARS still required or is it a pre-Covid scheme which no longer makes sense due to the changes to commuting patterns? Certainly, the major redevelopment of what is a relatively recent station building, plus the compulsory acquisition and demolition of 30 cottages in Gloucester Road, seem wrongheaded.
Not just people’s homes but the entire Tait Road industrial estate and dozens of businesses.
They deftly omitted that in the consultation
If CARS ever gets built, it will take years and cost a lot . The previous biggest bottleneck on the British railway network was just north of London Bridge Station, where they had two tracks over Borough Market (only one in each direction) that had to to serve three lines, to Cannon Street Station, Blackfriars and to Charing Cross. They have doubled that to four lines now, and quite a few other changes, in the London Bridge Station Redevelopment Project, but it was a very expensive project that took years and caused a lot of disruption.
If they were talking about removing the Selhurst bottleneck in the early 1980s (Hugh Harrison), people could have commuted for an entire working career and never seen the improvements !