Network Rail Upgrade Delayed
Thursday 25th June 2015
The government has today announced it will delay or cut back a number of modernisation projects planned for Network Rail.
The plan was only launched last year as the “largest modernisation of the railways since Victorian times” but Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin says it was too ambitious and rising costs and missed targets make the £38.5bn plan untenable.
According to senior people in the rail industry, the Department for Transport was warned last spring that the five-year plan was at risk but the government waited until after the election before announcing the change. No points for guessing why.
It isn’t technically a breach of an election promise, but instead a delayed admission that a plan wasn’t feasible. I wonder how many more such admissions will arise over the next few months.
Click here to read the article on BBC News.