FIRST GROUP SAYS IT MAY NEED TO INVEST MORE IN NEW FRANCHISE

FIRSTGroup PLC says it may need to invest extra cash in a new rail franchise it is due to take over in April.

In a reply to a customer letter seen by AFX News, part of Agence France Presse, FirstGroup said that the new FirstCapitalConnect (FCC) franchise — formed from the existing Thameslink and Great Northern services — may merit “much more” investment than the £52 million it has committed to spend.

According to AFX News, First said it had to bid against “very specific criteria” to win the nine-year contract, which commits it to making £808 million of premium payments to the government.

The passenger watchdog, the Rail Passengers Council, said the Department for Transport’s deal with First would leave passengers facing higher fares without the promise of major capacity improvements.

An RPC spokesman said: “You could easily assume from this that the only things that matter to the government are cost and punctuality.”

Describing the £52 million investment plan as “substantial,” the FirstGroup letter added: “We appreciate it could be much more. However, this is very much an interim franchise whilst the Thameslink programme is undertaken.

“Throughout the franchise, we will continually look at business cases for investment and where there is a good case, we will make further investment.”

The RPC said it was disappointed there is no contractual commitment to tackle overcrowding on some routes covered by the deal, which include Bedford to Brighton and Cambridge, Peterborough and Hertford to London.

A FirstGroup spokeswoman told AFX News: “Our record of investment across all our rail franchises is very impressive.”

AFX reported that a spokeswoman for the DfT said the government would spend the premium payments it received on the railways.


SOURCE RAILNEWS