Uckfield to Lewes - postscript

BACKGROUND

In 2008, Mott Macdonald published a report on the feasibility of reopening the line between Uckfield and Lewes. It dismayed many by putting forward a Benefit to Cost ratio of 0.78 - way too low for the project to proceed. What I intend to do here is to raise the possibility that the BCR calculation might actually be too low, and that the project might have a sufficient BCR to proceed.

COSTS

At the time of the report being published, I saw a number of complaints around the cost calculation. To refresh the mind of anyone who doesn't know, the principal line item civil engineering costs would be a new station at Uckfield, a new bridge over the railway in Uckfield town centre, and a bridge for the A22 Uckfield bypass over the railway. I have no substantial issue with the projected costs - I am aware of the risks of 'unknown unknowns' in a project such as this, and it's a good idea to plan for the worst then add 30% contingency to the budget, as this report does. I could quibble about the plan to retain the Lavender Line and not simply compensate them and tell them to move on, but the impact of people playing steam trains on the costs is negligible.

BENEFITS

Benefits are far harder to quantify than costs. In Central London, we'd need to quantify socio-economic benefits, but this is leafy East Sussex - so we're pretty much talking about how many people would shift their mode of transport from car, bus, horse, bike or foot to train. The principal reason for doing this is nothing to do with carbon footprint - it's simply that it's faster. In many rural areas the roads are quiet and the railway is slow and stops everywhere. The 17 miles of the A26 between Crowborough and Lewes is heavily congested in a morning - whereas the railway would take 22 minutes with two stops.

So let's look at Mott Macdonald's profile for new journeys on a London to Lewes via Uckfield route.

Uckfield	Lewes	383
Uckfield	Brighton	98
Uckfield	Eastbourne	53
Uckfield	Newhaven Town	33
Uckfield	Seaford	29
Crowborough	Lewes	84
Crowborough	Brighton	53
Crowborough	Eastbourne	31
Crowborough	Newhaven Town	19
Crowborough	Seaford	17
Buxted	Lewes	37
Buxted	Brighton	19
Buxted	Eastbourne	11
Buxted	Newhaven Town	6
Buxted	Seaford	6

Looking at yearly footfall statistics, the figures from Crowborough and Buxted look low relative to Uckfield:

Uckfield	269084
Crowborough	203127
Buxted	87812

It looks reasonable that Uckfield's market could expand by 383 people per day going to Lewes by train. However, if we assume that the market to Lewes expands in line with Uckfield from each of Crowborough and Buxted, and we take account of the fact that Eridge station is just off the A26 and five miles from Tunbridge Wells - not an unreasonable assumption given the speed of journey and the congestion on the A26 - we see a very different picture:

Uckfield	Lewes	383
Uckfield	Brighton	98
Uckfield	Eastbourne	53
Uckfield	Newhaven Town	33
Uckfield	Seaford	29
Crowborough	Lewes	289
Crowborough	Brighton	53
Crowborough	Eastbourne	31
Crowborough	Newhaven Town	19
Crowborough	Seaford	17
Buxted	Lewes	125
Buxted	Brighton	19
Buxted	Eastbourne	11
Buxted	Newhaven Town	6
Buxted	Seaford	6
Eridge	Lewes	200
Eridge	Brighton	25
Eridge	Eastbourne	25
Eridge	Newhaven Town	10
Eridge	Seaford	10

I'm now going to make a very simplistic assumption about the single fare from Uckfield to Lewes: it's between the cost of Busted to Uckfield and Crowborough to Uckfield, and it's added to existing fares.

This gives the following revenue profile for Mott Macdonald's assumptions based on full single fares - it is only used for relative purposes to my own assumptions - the real values don't really matter:

From	To	People	Fare	Revenue
Uckfield	Lewes	383	£2.70	£1,034.10
Uckfield	Brighton	98	£6.80	£666.40
Uckfield	Eastbourne	53	£10.80	£572.40
Uckfield	Newhaven Town	33	£5.30	£174.90
Uckfield	Seaford	29	£5.30	£153.70
Crowborough	Lewes	84	£6.40	£537.60
Crowborough	Brighton	53	£14.50	£768.50
Crowborough	Eastbourne	31	£10.50	£325.50
Crowborough	Newhaven Town	19	£9.00	£171.00
Crowborough	Seaford	17	£9.00	£153.00
Buxted	Lewes	37	£4.50	£166.50
Buxted	Brighton	19	£8.60	£163.40
Buxted	Eastbourne	11	£12.60	£138.60
Buxted	Newhaven Town	6	£7.10	£42.60
Buxted	Seaford	6	£7.10	£42.60
Total Revenue				£5,110.80

And for my assumptions:

From	To	People	Fare	Revenue
Uckfield	Lewes	383	£2.70	£1,034.10
Uckfield	Brighton	98	£6.80	£666.40
Uckfield	Eastbourne	53	£10.80	£572.40
Uckfield	Newhaven Town	33	£5.30	£174.90
Uckfield	Seaford	29	£5.30	£153.70
Crowborough	Lewes	289	£6.40	£1,849.60
Crowborough	Brighton	53	£14.50	£768.50
Crowborough	Eastbourne	31	£10.50	£325.50
Crowborough	Newhaven Town	19	£9.00	£171.00
Crowborough	Seaford	17	£9.00	£153.00
Buxted	Lewes	125	£4.50	£562.50
Buxted	Brighton	19	£8.60	£163.40
Buxted	Eastbourne	11	£12.60	£138.60
Buxted	Newhaven Town	6	£7.10	£42.60
Buxted	Seaford	6	£7.10	£42.60
Eridge	Lewes	200	£7.50	£1,500.00
Eridge	Brighton	25	£11.60	£290.00
Eridge	Eastbourne	15	£15.60	£234.00
Eridge	Newhaven Town	10	£10.10	£101.00
Eridge	Seaford	10	£10.10	£101.00
Total Revenue				£8,943.80

As I said the actual totals don't matter - what's important is the ratio of the two figures, 8943.8/5110.8 - 1.75. Now let's look at the BCR.

BCR

The BCR calculation isn't that hard to understand - essentially as the revenues increase, the government loses fuel tax, but benefits such as clean air, time saving and congestion reduction come into play. For illustrative purposes I will assume that the impact on these factors is linear - this may well balance out in reality. The figures also include both local government and central government subsidy. Local government subsidy is zero on the Mott Macdonald study, and is calculated not to have any impact - unlike central government subsidy, also zero. I would argue that East Sussex should be lobbied to pay a similar percentage to Hertfordshire on the Croxley Link, say £23.5m at 2008 prices. The Mott Macdonald calculation looks like this, in thousands of pounds:

Local government funding (LGF)	0
Revenue (REV)	80433
Operating costs (OC)	-40272
Investment costs (IC)	-96465
Developer and other contributions	0
Central Government Funding (CGF)	0
Indirect Tax Revenues (ITF)	-5177
Present value of Costs (sum of above)	-61481
Time Savings	21644
Noise	181
Local Air Quality	272
Greenhouse Gases	572
Accidents	1113
Infrastructure	123
Congestion	6835
Present value of Benefits (BEN, sum of above)	30740
Net Present Value (costs + benefits)	-30741
BCR –(REV + BEN)/(OC + IC + CGF + ITF)	0.78

Applying the 1.75 ratio to the revenue and including the East Sussex contribution, we see:

Local government funding (LGF)	23500
Revenue (REV)	140757.75
Operating costs (OC)	-40272
Investment costs (IC)	-96465
Developer and other contributions	0
Central Government Funding (CGF)	0
Indirect Tax Revenues (ITF)	-5177
Present value of Costs (sum of above)	18461
Time Savings	37877
Noise	317
Local Air Quality	476
Greenhouse Gases	1001
Accidents	1948
Infrastructure	123
Congestion	11961
Present value of Benefits (BEN, sum above)	53795
Net Present Value (costs + benefits)	72256
BCR -(REV + BEN)/(OC + IC + CGF + ITF +LGF)	1.59

CONCLUSION

I'm an IT consultant, not a railway consultant, so there may well be flaws in my argument. However, I've made a couple of simple modifications and turned a scheme from a project which is not entertainable to one which needs further consideration. The congestion on the A26 is only going to get worse. Maybe it's time to reconsider Lewes-Uckfield?