Implementing PR18: consultation on changes to access contracts

Consultation status
Conclusions published
Date of publication
Closing date
Body
Components

This consultation set out the specific changes we proposed to make to Network Rail's track and station access agreements to implement the conclusions of the 2018 periodic review (PR18). It was based on the overall proposed decisions that were set out in our draft determination, which we were consulting separately on at the time. The responses we received are set out below; we are grateful to all those who responded.

On 20 December 2018, we issued legal ‘review notices’. These set out the changes to be made to Network Rail’s track and station access agreements on and from 1 April 2019, pending the completion of the implementation process. The changes included in the review notices reflected both our consideration of the points raised by consultees to our consultation on implementing PR18 and also our final decisions on PR18 as set out in our final determination, published on 31 October 2018.

While the review notices gave Network Rail the opportunity to object to the proposed changes, Network Rail has confirmed to us that it does not object. Accordingly, on 8 February 2019, we issued ‘notices of agreement’ to its beneficiaries (its access agreement customers) to confirm this. Alongside these notices, we published our conclusions to our consultation on implementing PR18. This explains the final decisions we took, as reflected in our review notices.

Conclusions

Consultation documentation

Collapse accordion Open accordion

Implementing PR18: consultation on changes to access contracts

Alongside the July 2018 consultation document, we also published  the following mark-ups showing the specific drafting changes that we proposed to make (the final changes were set out in our December 2018 review notices):

  1. Franchised passenger
    Mark-up of proposed changes against the CP5 model contract.
  2. Open access passenger
    Mark-up of proposed changes against the CP5 open access Schedule 7. We did not propose to make any amendments to either the open access Schedule 4 or Schedule 8 that had not already been identified in the franchise passenger wording. For this reason, we did not publish a separate Schedule 4 or 8 for OAOs. Instead, we advised consultees to look at the mark-up of changes relating to Schedules 4 and 8 in the franchised passenger contract (available here), as these were the same contractual changes that we would propose to make for OAOs (where equivalent positions existed in their contracts at the time).
  3. Freight operator
    Mark-up of the proposed changes against the CP5 model contract.
  4. Freight customer operator
    Please see the mark-up of proposed changes for the freight operator contract (above) and the additional commentary in paragraph 5.18, for proposed amendments relating to this contract (along with chapters 2, 3 and 5).
  5. Freight customer
    Please see paragraph 5.19 of this document for details of the changes we proposed.
  6. Charter train operator
    Mark-up of the changes we proposed against the CP5 model contract. See Chapter 6 of our consultation document for an overview of the main changes.
  7. Traction Electricity Rules
    Mark-up against the 1 April 2018 version of the Traction Electricity Rules.