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Friday 4 Apr 2008

NETWORK RAIL TAKES NEXT STEP IN REGULATORY REVIEW WITH THE PUBLICATION OF ITS STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLAN UPDATE

Region & Route:

National

Network Rail today issued its Strategic Business Plan update which is a key milestone of the company's ongoing regulatory review.

Since publishing its Strategic Business Plan (SBP) in November 2007 - an industry view on infrastructure spending plans and priorities for the five-year period 2009 to 2014 - Network Rail has been in discussions with the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) and industry partners to identify areas requiring further work which form key parts of the update.

The update document provides further clarity on the company's plans and provides additional justification and evidence to support the projections and cost estimates in November's SBP.

Over the coming months the plan will continue to be revised in consultation with our industry partners, and in March 2009 Network Rail will publish a final plan. This will set out what needs to be delivered to allow the railway to grow and thrive, and will outline plans to deal with some of the most pressing challenges for the period 2009 to 2014.

The plan is published against a background of strong growth, improving safety and sustained improvements across the whole industry. Demand growth has remained strong and punctuality is now approaching 90 per cent across Britain on a moving annual average basis for the first time in recorded history. The update sets out our plans to:

• Deliver substantial, further improvements in efficiency
• Reach levels of punctuality which have never been seen before with more and longer trains and improved journey times
• Deliver several billion pounds of investment every year while continuing to operate an increasingly busy railway
• Make progress towards the vision of a seven-day railway that will deliver an all week round railway with better and more services at weekends