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ITEM EX24

COTSWOLD LINE RAIL STUDY

Introduction

1. The County Council is a member of the Cotswold and Malverns Transport Partnership which was formed five years ago with the aim of developing the Cotswold railway line between Oxford, Worcester and Hereford. In Oxfordshire all Cotswold Line trains serve Oxford, Charlbury and Kingham; most serve Hanborough, but only a very limited service is provided for the halts at Combe, Finstock, Ascott-under-Wychwood and Shipton.
2. In 1999 the Partnership commissioned the Oscar Faber consultancy to look at how the Cotswold Line should be developed. A report detailing the outcome of this study was submitted to the former Public Transport Sub-Committee in November 1999.
3. A further report commissioned from Halcrow Fox identified a £50 million ‘first stage’ development. However the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) in discussion with the Partnership indicated that this still fell outside the criteria for Rail Passenger Partnership (RPP) funding.

Potential Progress towards Enhancement of the Network

4. The Partnership has continued to meet in order to try to identify a series of smaller RPP bids which would give the biggest benefits (maximum capacity achieved for minimum infrastructure enhancement). These were shown to be the doubling of track from Norton Junction (near Worcester) to Pershore plus additional signalling between Malvern Link and Great Malvern. Although the location of these improvements lies totally outside Oxfordshire, they would provide significant benefits to Oxfordshire residents with a more robust and frequent timetable (hourly off-peak). The aim of this project would be to show a return on capital expenditure both in terms of increasing capacity on the line and improving reliability.
5. Officers of the Partnership have held two recent meetings with the SRA at which it gave a positive reception to this latest idea. It has also indicated that funding is now available from the new Rail Performance Fund (RPF), which has funding of £40 million per annum over a ten-year period, but that, in order to stand the best chance of success with a bid, an application should be received for 2002/03 determination. This would need to be submitted by the Partnership by July 2002. In subsequent years, there is likely to be much more competition for funding, hence the urgency for this submission.
6. The information provided by the consultants provides a useful starting base but suffers from being already somewhat out-of-date. In order to formulate a submission to the standard required by the SRA, further development cost work needs to be undertaken in terms of level of detail and financial information, with a full review of construction costs. This detailed work is likely to require an expenditure of £250,000-£400,000, of which an overall share of £130,000 is being proposed to be funded by the relevant local authorities, the major contribution to which will need to come from the County Councils. The remaining funding would come from the SRA. It has been emphasised that the SRA would not contemplate giving 100% funding and that it would want to see a meaningful financial commitment from local authorities before it would support the project. In order to achieve the recommended submission date of July of this year, a degree of urgency for this work is required.
7. The Local Transport Plan (LTP) spells out (page 81) that the Council supports the further development of the Cotswold Line and will continue to work through the Partnership with the aim of improving the services offered by the line.

Financial Implications

8. Should the Partnership’s bid to the RSA be successful, the track enhancement and signalling work is likely to be carried out in the 2005/06 financial year, and this will involve a major call on the Council’s capital funding. The amount of the capital contribution which this Council will be called on to contribute towards the overall project which could cost between £15-£50m (depending on the nature of the project which is finally agreed) cannot at this stage be quantified.
9. Normally this matter would be dealt with as part of the Capital Programme Review which the Executive will be considering in April. The urgency to complete the submission to the SRA by July 2002 means however that we need to be able to confirm to the Partnership our contribution to the development costs by 31 March 2002. For this reason, a decision on this cannot wait until the main review in April but needs to be taken forthwith. Oxfordshire County Council’s share of the £130,000 has not been clarified at the time of writing but will not exceed £30,000, and this can be met from the existing provision for consultants’ fees. Nevertheless the Council, in agreeing to pay its contribution towards the development costs of this capital project, will be raising the expectation of entering into a long-term commitment to co-funding the project itself, as set out in paragraph 8 above, in advance of any other decisions on the capital programme. The size of this contribution and its timing would need to be the subject of a future report to the Executive. As is the case with the development cost funding, the SRA, if it accepts the Partnership submission, will expect the members of the Partnership to fund a meaningful financial contribution towards the costs of the project.

Staff Implications

10. Work on the development costs and the submission to the SRA will be carried out by consultants on behalf of the Partnership. Staff already attend meetings of the Partnership and in future the County Council’s day-to-day work on the Cotswold Line will be undertaken by its new Rail Development Officer who commences employment in April.

RECOMMENDATIONS

11. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

1. agree to fund a contribution of up to £30,000 to the Cotswold and Malverns Transport Partnership in the 2002-03 financial year for development costs in preparing a submission to the Strategic Rail Authority for the upgrading of the Cotswold Line; and
2. note the expectation of a significant Capital contribution by the County Council towards the future upgrading of the Cotswold Line, should the submission by the Cotswold and Malverns Partnership to the Strategic Rail Authority be successful, subject to further detailed report on the likely costs and financing implications in the context of the benefits to Oxfordshire.

DAVID YOUNG
Director of Environmental Services

Contact Officer: Alan Pope Tel: Oxford 815585

March 2002

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