Railway Industry Association launches second stage of its SURE campaign, calling on Government to speed up rail projects

6 July 2020

 

The Railway Industry Association (RIA), the voice of the UK rail supply community, has launched the next stage of its SURE campaign, calling on the Government to ‘Speed up Rail Enhancements’ (SURE).

Last year, the first stage of the SURE campaign successfully called on the Department for Transport to ‘Show Us the Rail Enhancements’ projects in order to provide visibility to rail suppliers. Now, following the need for an economic recovery due to the Coronavirus outbreak and the lack of urgency delivering these schemes, the campaign is calling on the Treasury to play its part and to fast-track and fund the projects on the list.

The campaign was launched with an open letter today to Chancellor Rishi Sunak by RIA Chief Executive Darren Caplan, calling for the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline to be accelerated.

Darren Caplan, Chief Executive of the Railway Industry Association (RIA), said: “The Government has said it is committed to building new infrastructure as part of its ‘New Deal’ for a post-Coronavirus economic recovery.

“The Railway Industry Association believes that rail projects have a vital role to play in that recovery, providing green investment across towns and communities throughout the UK and generating significant economic growth and jobs.

“Since we launched the ‘Show Us the Rail Enhancements’ campaign last summer, the DfT commendably published the RNEP list in October. However, with the economy crying out to be rebooted and a plethora of rail schemes ready to go, we are now launching stage two of the campaign to get these enhancements schemes sped up. Fundamentally we are calling on the Treasury to accelerate and fund delivery of these enhancements projects as soon as possible, ensuring they play a key part in the UK’s future economic strategy.

“As the Chancellor prepares his speech on a green UK economic recovery, and seeks sectors ready to kick-start jobs and GVA, we urge him to be SURE and Speed up Rail Enhancements, to benefit UK plc, its communities and long-term connectivity.”

The open letter to the Chancellor can be found here.

Notes to Editors

 

  1. The Government's Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP) can be found here
  2. About RIA: The Railway Industry Association (RIA) is the voice of the UK rail supply community. We help to grow a sustainable, high-performing, railway supply industry, and to export UK rail expertise and products. We promote and represent our members’ interests to policy makers, clients and other stakeholders in the UK and overseas. RIA has 300+ companies in membership in a sector that contributes £36 billion in economic growth and £11 billion in tax revenue each year, as well as employing 600,000 people—more than the workforce of Birmingham. It is also a growing industry with the number of rail journeys expected to double over the next 25 years and freight set to grow significantly too. RIA’s membership is active across the whole of railway supply, covering a diverse range of products and services and including both multi-national companies and SMEs (60% by number). RIA works to promote the importance of the rail system to UK plc, to help export UK expertise around the globe and to share best practice and innovation across the industry.