Ministers have pledged to roll out ‘new and innovative’ ways of working across rail upgrade schemes, eight months after the prime minister announced a new taskforce to speed up ‘vital infrastructure projects'.
The news comes as sub-national transport body Transport for the North said it had delayed publication of its business case for Northern Powerhouse Rail at the Department for Transport’s (DfT) request following delays to the Government’s Integrated Rail Plan.
The DfT said the Government has challenged the rail industry ‘to pioneer new ways of working that will halve the time and reduce the cost of delivering critical infrastructure projects, with the launch of the next stage of rail Project SPEED'.
Rail Project SPEED (Swift, Pragmatic and Efficient Enhancement Delivery) was jointly developed by the Department for Transport (DfT) and Network Rail last summer, following the prime minister’s announcement in June of a new Infrastructure Delivery Taskforce, named ‘Project Speed’.
The taskforce is led by the chancellor and is designed to ‘bring forward proposals to deliver government’s public investment projects more strategically and efficiently’.
The DfT said infrastructure projects at different stages of development have been reviewed to identify how government funding could go further and work could be carried out faster.
‘This approach identified 10 key themes to lower costs and speed up the delivery of infrastructure schemes, such as rapidly increasing the use of innovative construction methods and removing complexity from planning processes.’
‘These new and innovative ways of working will be rolled out across all rail upgrades,’ officials said.
Rail minister Chis Heaton-Harris
Rail minister Chis Heaton-Harris said: ‘Rail Project SPEED, forged alongside Network Rail, is a call to arms to cut unnecessary red tape, be bold and purposeful, and empower the railway to be radical in its thinking to halve the time and reduce the cost of delivering infrastructure projects.’
Officials said plans to re-open the Northumberland line between Ashington and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, announced in January, were already benefiting from Project SPEED principles.
The DfT said that it, Northumberland County Council, Network Rail and AECOM ‘have collectively worked to identify opportunities to bring this into service as quickly as possible,’ adding: ‘This could take months off the schedule and deliver efficiencies that save millions from the programme.’
It did not state what the original schedule or costings were.
A DfT spokesperson told Transport Network that the 10 ‘thematic areas’ under Rail Project Speed are:
- Procurement
- Governance,
- PACE and Optioneering
- Assurance
- Planning and Consents
- Access and Possessions
- Timetabling
- Culture and Capability
- One Team
- Rail Interoperability Regulations and Standards Challenge
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