Last month I reported that Ted Hand and I had met three out of the four companies who are in the process of bidding for the soon to be re-let Wales and Borders rail franchise. The meetings had gone well and were really encouraging but we had not met the current operators, Arriva Trains Wales. I am pleased to say that since then we have met Eluned Parrott (previously Assembly Member for Cardiff central), who is part of the stakeholder engagement team for ATW. We found Eluned’s comments to be equally encouraging and she was seriously impressed by the progress MAGOR have made.
Speaking of progress, today Ted and I took part in an audio conference with Monmouthshire County Council and Mott MacDonald about progress with the on-going first phase of the GRIP 3 study – Passenger Demand Forecast and Economic Appraisal. All I can say at this stage is that the ‘economics’ look very promising indeed and details will be published very soon.
Paul
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