First Great Western trains granted extension nearby our warehouse premises in Bristol

First Great Western is to be awarded an extension to its contract, with no competition for its services linking Bristol, Cheltenham and the wider West Country with London Paddington. We are excited for the transport opportunities this will make for our warehouse premises. The BBC reported yesterday that a five-year term had been decided though, while the Department of Transport confirmed there would be a directly awarded contract it said the term had not been set. It will be the third extension for FGW since the franchising programme collapsed two years ago and will allow electrification work already under way to continue under the same oversight.

But Brendon Kelly, from the RMT union, told the BBC: “All the investment at current is coming from the government, nothing is coming from the private operators, they’re literally just managing it and sharing out the dividends to their shareholders. That’s money we could be spending on the railways.”

Some £5bn is being invested to electrify the track between Bristol and Cardiff, which involves major work such as raising road bridges. The BBC said it understood that the contract would be opened to new bidders once the £5 billion project to electrify the main line between Bristol, Cardiff and Paddington has been completed.

Chris Irwin, from passenger lobby group Travel Watch South West, said: “One of the worries was that before the government decided to look at the possibility of the five-year franchise extension, we’d get a new franchise entrant coming in. That new franchise entrant would lack the inside knowledge of how this particular bit of railway works and that would be a real disaster.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We are committed to providing better services, more seats and more trains across the rail network in the South West as part of our long-term economic plan. As part of that process we are currently negotiating a directly awarded contract for First Great Western to continue running services. We have not yet decided how long that contract will be.”

Source: Western Daily Press