At the Strathbungo Society Committee meeting on Tuesday 21^st April 2015, it was agreed that the candidates, who are standing in the General Election, for Glasgow Central (our constituency) would be written to, asking them for their views, policy and support regarding the operation and accountability of Network Rail (NR).

There is a regulatory body for NR: the Office for Rail and Road (ORR), which is a non-ministerial department of the Department for Transport. All the powers of ORR are derived from Parliament. However, its regulatory powers are limited to economic efficiencies and health and safety of the whole rail industry. ORR, like NR itself, is funded by taxpayers.

Despite NR’s status as a Central Government body – it was re-classified in September 2014, adding some 34 billion to public sector debt in the process – it seems to operate like a private company, with, it seems, no direct accountability through its regulatory body, ORR at either Westminster or the Scottish Parliament.

Network Rail have the power to cut down all the green corridors in the whole of this country, as well as the rest of the UK on the grounds of their duty to ensure safety – Their powers nationally seem to be without limit. This is not right. Other private companies like BT, Scottish Gas etc have regulatory bodies to temper their operation and to hold them accountable to government and the taxpayer.

The candidates standing for our constituency have been written to today. A copy of the letter is attached and if any of you wish to contact the candidates yourself on this matter, please do so.

The Glasgow Central candidates are:

Conservative: Simon Bone                          Simon.Bone@ScottishConservatives.com

TUSC: Andrew Elliott                                     scottishtusc@gmail.com

Green: Cass MacGregor                               cass.macgregor@scottishgreens.org.uk

Cannibis is Safer than Alcohol: James Marris               info@cista.org

Socialist Equality: Katie Rhodes                   Katie.rhodes1917@yahoo.com

Labour: Anas Sarwar                                     anas.sarwar.mp@parliament.uk

SNP: Alison Thewliss                                     alisonthewliss@hotmail.com

Liberal Democrat: Chris Young                   chris@chrisyoung.org.uk

You can download a draft letter to the election candidates here:

letter to General Election candidates for Glasgow Central re policy on NR from The Strathbungo Society 29th April 2015