A leading QS has warned that the rail industry needs to radically change how it works with consultants and contractors if it is to deliver improvements to the network
Rod Nathan, a senior risk manager at Davis Langdon & Everest, said the rail sector was far behind other construction sectors in its relationships with its suppliers.

Nathan, who was speaking at a RICS rail conference on Tuesday, said: "It is an immature and naive marketplace compared with general civil engineering and construction. The methods of cost control are light. There is a failure in the industry to recognise the need to adapt to the modern marketplace."

Nathan's attack came as a report by campaigning group Transport 2000 published on Wednesday claimed that rail spending would hit 拢3.8bn for 2003/04 compared with 拢1.3bn in 1993/94, British Rail's last year of operation.

Nathan said the industry needed to move away from a system in which contractors "did what they were told". "We have moved away from that in the rest of construction," he said. If this did not happen, Nathan continued, the industry would never control costs.

Railway costs are not predictable 鈥� and nobody can plan investment if they don鈥檛 know the costs

Rod Nathan, Davis Langdon & Everest

He said: "The opportunity is to move the marketplace forward into a sophisticated and predictable market. Railway costs are not predictable 鈥� and nobody can plan investment if they do not know the costs."

Nathan said this approach was just as necessary for small rail projects, such as platform extensions, as it was for line modernisations, such as the 拢8bn West Coast Main Line upgrade.