MADAM - I read with interest Neil Carmichael’s contribution about the rail network in the December 10 edition of the Stroud News & Journal and noted he claimed that the last Labour government managed only nine miles of newly-electrified railway in its 13 years of office.
I wondered how Mr Carmichael came to this figure, having travelled on the electrified High Speed 1 line from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel which was opened in 2007 after 10 years of work during that Labour administration.
Was that the nine miles across built-up London with the complexities and expense of multiple road and rail bridges, tunnel under the Thames, and the renovation of St Pancras Station itself, that allowed HS1 to fully function?
As for the current electrification work, the conception and planning began in the Network Rail consultation May 2009, a year before the coalition took over the project.
Many big projects are started by one government and are completed during a subsequent government. But in Mr Carmichael’s use of statistics, he seems to want to credit the Conservatives for both those started or completed whilst the Conservatives are part of the government, yet deny credit to Labour for those started or completed by them.
His article on Britain’s railway infrastructure gives no credit to Labour’s massive investment in new line and signalling, to make safe the ageing and dangerous state of affairs they inherited after decades of neglect under previous administrations.
A Canham
Stonehouse
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