An independent review into the response of England’s transport system to severe winter weather was announced by the then Secretary of State on 30th March 2010. The review, steered by a panel of three leading independent experts, considered the resilience of our Transport systems to periods of severe winter weather and reported in two stages.
The Final Report, published on 22nd October 2010, reported on railways and aviation, as well as longer term issues of resilience for the salt supply chain. It also dealt with the economics of winter resilience, progress since the publication of the Interim Report, and cross-modal issues of public expectation and communication, and of integration between networks and modes.
This week, shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle, questioned transport secretary Philip Hammond in the House of Commons:
Maria Eagle said: "The winter resilience review commissioned by the previous Government has produced its final report and recommendations, yet the country is in chaos, with passengers forced to sleep at stations, freezing all night on broken-down trains or getting trapped in their cars, all at a cost to the economy of up to £1.2 billion a day. Why are not the findings of the review being implemented? The public do not want the Secretary of State to announce another review by the person who has already set out the blueprint for improvements. They want him to get on and implement the recommendations and improvements. When is the Secretary of State going to get a grip?"
Mr Hammond replied: "First of all, the Hon. Lady fails to recognise the scale of the weather event that is occurring. It involves a significantly bigger snowfall than the one that occurred earlier this year, which gave rise to the events that caused my predecessor to commission the review. The findings and recommendations of the review have been implemented, and I have asked David Quarmby to come back and audit their implementation so that we can see the extent to which they have been consistently implemented and whether there are any lessons that we can learn from the last few days. I hope that the Hon. Lady will support that approach."
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