Socio-Economic Impact Study - Regional Rail System - 2003-2004

Background

The original Thameslink system was created in the late 1980s to provide the only significant North-South London rail services across the London conurbation and its surrounding regions. It is a high density strategic railway, with fast services every 15 minutes running from Bedford 50 miles north of London to Brighton 60 miles to the south. In its present configuration it links the main UK business and financial centres, as well as two major airports, to very large commuting bases in the East of England and South East regions and carries120,000 passengers a day.

Key changes proposed as part of the scheme include:

• A much larger geographical area served (a further 121 stations and a total catchment area population of over 7 million)
• Longer trains (12 car rather than 8 car in most cases)
• Cross platform interchange with the CTRL services to continental Europe when the St Pancras terminal is completed in 2007)
• Faster, more frequent services as the result of removing bottlenecks (24 trains per hour through the core section)

For the purposes of this study, it was necessary to integrate large and complex databases from a variety of sources. At the same time, analyses had to be capable of providing rigorously tested answers to questions posed about current and future socio-economic outcomes at both a detailed local level and at a wider regional level. In addition to traditional economic analyses, regeneration and social inclusion issues were regarded as significant.

The central questions were concerned with the interaction between accessibility changes and socio-economic outcomes in specific locations. In each case there was a particular focus on how employment opportunities would be changed for those most in need of such opportunities, as well as with central, regional and local government policy issues, notably those dealing with urban regeneration and employment or housing growth areas.

Temple’s Role

To define the scope of the socio-economic investigations and analyses, project manage these studies and provide the necessary technical expertise to undertake the assessment and to prepare the client reports as part of the EIA and provide additional information to support the Thameslink 2000 business case.

Services Provided

Socio-economic profiles, including sectoral and occupational analyses, unemployment rates, job densities, travel to work patterns and modes, deprivation indices, major job markets and growth opportunities. Data sources that were used included:

• the 2001 Census of Population;
• the Indices of Deprivation 2000 (as constructed by the Index Team at Oxford University for DETR);
• the National Online Manpower Information System (NOMIS) database;
• ‘Claimant Count’ information from the administrative records of Jobcentre Plus ;
• the Annual Business Inquiry; and
• Area specific economic development and property market data assembled for this project.

The assessment of socio-economic impacts at local and regional levels, included direct, indirect and induced effects

National, regional and local planning frameworks, economic development strategies and regeneration programmes were all reviewed as part of the assessment. The assessment was reported as a stand alone technical annex to the ES. Further support was also given to the development of a sustainability evaluation matrix and its completion.

PP002