Hendy Report

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Amongst all the aspirational hopes that have surfaced on this thread, let me be my usual harbinger of doom and bring to the attention of all and sundry that world economic climates can suddenly change with dramatic consequences that will have financial implications for any treasured national improvements.

Mark Carney, our current Governor of the Bank of England, is not one to let projected falls in the economies of the larger monetary powers go unremarked upon and his recent comments highlighting the sudden downwards move of the world economies are most certainly one to heed, noting this was said to be a reason why the aspirational rise in British interest rates has been currently set back for at least a further year.

To think that the Treasury will not look upon any project that will require any extra funding in order to achieve a betterment of its aims is to apply the "ostrich" syndrome.

 

[lejog]

On TPE North a larger programme of capacity and line speed improvements is now proposed than before. That was part of the whole pause/unpause thing. So it's not surprising they've become a separate item.

The Calder Valley improvements were never listed under TPE North electrification in the first place but were a separate item under the overall Northern Programme heading.

Okay they were listed under a project titled Northern Programme (Yorkshire) whose major output was TPE North Electrification. However there were concerns that the enhancements would be paused along with the electrification especially because they were planned together because of significant identified cost savings. The DfT wouldn't comment on whether the enhancements were also paused and were still being evasive in December when asked in a direct parliamentary question.


Of course since December work has started at Rochdale and extra TPE and Northern services announced in the new franchises, so it is not surprising in that the enhancements are only subject to short delays, not delayed to 2022.

 

[snowball]

Okay they were listed under a project titled Northern Programme (Yorkshire) whose major output was TPE North Electrification. However there were concerns that the enhancements would be paused along with the electrification especially because they were planned together because of significant identified cost savings. The DfT wouldn't comment on whether the enhancements were also paused and were still being evasive in December when asked in a direct parliamentary question.

Are we using the word "paused" in the different senses? The government ended the pause on TP electrification in September when it announced the new much later completion date of 2022. Are you referring to that announcement itself as the pause?