Biggleswade station, located on the East Coast Mainline in Bedfordshire, and a growing commuter town, was awarded ‘Access for All’ funding in April 2019. Since then the project, now on its fifth Network Rail project lead, has faced several delays and we have moved from a completion date of Summer 2022, to a provisional date of Summer 2025. At a recent Public Accounts Committee appearance in Parliament, the CEO of Network Rail Andrew Haines admitted that Network Rail is failing people who are disabled by an inaccessible railway. Our experience at Biggleswade bears this out in full. You can read my blog on this appearance here: http://julianvaughan.blog/2024/04/30/actions-not-words-needed-on-rail-accessibility/ and you can read my open letter to Andrew Haines which discusses his appearance and the the lengthy delay at Biggleswade station here: http://julianvaughan.blog/2024/05/03/an-open-letter-to-network-rail-ceo-andrew-haines/ You can read the full update from today’s meeting below
“Today, we (Richard Fuller MP, Bedfordshire Rail Access Network, Town & Central Bedfordshire Councillors plus officers and GTR) met with Network Rail to discuss the latest delay to the installation of lifts at Biggleswade train station.
Network Rail explained to us that when they were doing piling work for the foundations in February they came across adverse ground conditions that caused a delay to the project. Previously, they had drilled some exploratory boreholes, but of the 4 boreholes only one of them gave them cause for concern – and they went on the information from the other three boreholes that gave no cause for concern.
These ground conditions caused a delay, and although the piling has now been completed the delay means that the contractors will be putting in a new estimate of costs. Further, the opportunities to do work on the railway when trains aren’t running (possessions) are now limited due to the upgrade to the East Coast Mainline, with a new digital signalling system and the project has missed several available slots due to the delay.
The end result is that they hope to restart work in July of this year and there is a ‘provisional’ completion date of Summer 2025.
We know this will be extremely disappointing to many, and we made this very clear to the Network Rail team.
Two important dates are coming up. The first is the 17th of May when the contractors put in their new quote, and the second is when Network Rail meets to authorise the increased funding required. The current cost for the project is just over £10 million. This meeting is due to take place in June.
As the Network Rail CEO admitted in parliament recently, they are poor at managing what they deem to be ‘smaller projects’ such as installing lifts at stations. The experience we have had since first receiving funding for this in April 2019 bears this out fully. Further, we are now working with the fifth Network Rail project lead since the project started. They seem to have a serious staff retention problem.
I have already written to the CEO of Network Rail about their complete failure to deliver for people disabled by an inaccessible railway, you can read the letter here: http://julianvaughan.blog/…/an-open-letter-to-network…/
A further joint letter is being prepared by all of us to send to the Secretary of State for Transport, setting out our disappointment and the need to make this project a top priority in light of the extended delays.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but please be assured that we are all working together (regardless of political affiliations) to hold Network Rail to account. Our next meeting with Network Rail will be in June, but we have asked for regular updates between meetings.”
Julian Vaughan
Chair Bedfordshire Rail Access Network
9th May 2024
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