Tuesday 27 Nov 2012
New commercial director of retail for Network Rail
- Region & Route:
- National
Network Rail has appointed Jonathan Crick to join its property division, as commercial director of retail.
Mr Crick will have overall responsibility for retail within the organisation, with a focus on driving retail investment at Network Rail’s 17 managed stations, including Britain’s busiest – King’s Cross, Liverpool Street and Waterloo. The role also oversees advertising, car parks and other commercial contracts at stations.
Network Rail’s director of property David Biggs said: “Britain relies on rail, and commercial revenue is a vital funding stream for Network Rail. We are at a crucial phase in delivering our vision for retail, as we work to create ever better environments for passengers and shoppers, transforming stations into destinations in their own right. Jonathan’s extensive commercial experience across the travel sector will be a major asset to our team, helping us to achieve our commercial goals and deliver even greater value for the British people.”
Joining from BAA, Mr Crick currently holds the post of commercial director at Stansted Airport, responsible for retail, property and aviation. Previous roles include easyBus where he was CEO and Monarch Airlines where he held a number of senior positions, most recently sales and marketing director. He joins Network Rail in January.
Mr Crick said: “Hundreds of millions of passengers pass through Network Rail’s managed stations every year. That represents a massive opportunity for retail businesses and the challenge is to create inspiring environments that can capture the imagination of the public, make them want to spend more time there, thus enabling businesses to thrive.
The success of recent developments that have transformed some of our best known and most used railway stations serves to demonstrate the extent of the opportunity at other major stations. There is huge scope to broaden the range of retail businesses represented, all of which will help Network Rail to grow what has become an increasingly important source of revenue.”
During the last three years, Network Rail has generated over £390m of revenue from retail activity. The total revenue forecast for all property activities over a five-year period ending March 2014, including business estate and developments, is £1.3bn. All profits are reinvested straight back into the railway, reducing the cost to taxpayers and passengers.
Notes to editors
Jonathan Crick:
- 2011-2013 commercial director, BAA Stansted Airport
- 2008-2011 chief executive, easyBus Limited
- 2004-2008 sales & marketing director, Monarch Airlines
- 2000-2004 commercial director, Monarch Airlines
Network Rail:
- Is one of the largest land and property owners in the country and commercial activities are core to the operation and development of our overall business. Over a five-year period until 2014, all property activities including retail, business space and commercial developments, are forecast to generate £1.3b – all of which will be reinvested straight back into the railways for the benefit of passengers
Network Rail property:
- Network Rail has over 520,000 sq ft of high footfall retail space at its 17 managed stations, many of which are amongst the largest stations in Britain. Like-for-like retail sales results at these stations have outperformed the high street for the last nine successive quarters
- Network Rail is the country’s largest provider of commercial property to small and medium sized businesses with a diverse portfolio of over 7,400 properties nationwide. The business space estate has occupancy rates of 95%.
- Network Rail works in partnership to promote regeneration around our stations and improve the journey experience by leveraging investment from the public and private sectors. Development projects include multi-million pound commercial schemes above our stations at London Bridge (Shard) and Solum Regeneration, a multi-site joint venture with Kier Property
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About Network Rail
We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.
Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.
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