The cost of keeping Britain on the rails 

On November 14 the Office of Rail & Road published its annual statistical release. This showed that the net support given to the UK rail industry in 2018/19 totaled £7.1bn.

The lion’s share of this went to Network Rail who received £3.86bn, whilst HS2 accounted for £2.6bn.

For the first time since 2009/10, the statistics showed that the government made a net grant payment to train operators of £417m.

The freight budget fell by £1.1m to £16m in 2018/19 continuing a trend which has been established now for a number of years.

Paul Wormald, partner at Hawsons commented: “An effective rail system is crucial to the efficient movement of people and goods across the nation, and this requires continued investment from Central Government.”

“In turn how these funds are utilised by the recipients needs scrutiny and monitoring on a regular basis. At Hawsons we are experienced in carrying out this type of work and in reporting to national and EU agencies on how funding is spent.

A link to our previous article “ Avoiding Grant Gremlins” can be found here:   https://www.hawsons.co.uk/avoiding-grant-gremlins/

At Hawsons we have a dedicated team of specialist transport accountants at our offices in Sheffield, Doncaster, and Northampton. We act for a large number of clients in this sector across our three offices, ranging from haulers to international couriers, and understand the challenges this dynamic sector faces.

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