Extending the General Approval to infrastructure managers other than Network Rail

Date of publication: 21 July 2023
Closing date: 21 August 2023

In 2022, we consulted rail industry colleagues on a review of the scope and definitions of the Network Rail General Approval for passenger track access. We received feedback during this consultation that we should consider making the General Approval provision available to IMs other than Network Rail. 

As well as simplifying the access application process for minor, low-risk changes, this may also assist in the alignment of access rights in cases where Network Rail infrastructure connects with or crosses that of other IMs.

The proposed amendments can be found in the consultation document. A marked-up version of the proposed General Approval shows the proposed changes in context. You can also view a clean copy of the proposed General Approval that doesn't include tracked changes.

We plan to publish all responses to this consultation on our website.

Should you wish for any information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that this may be subject to publication, or release to other parties or to disclosure, in accordance with the access to information regimes. These regimes are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Under the FOIA, there is a statutory code of practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this, if you are seeking confidentiality for information you are providing, please explain why. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information, we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on ORR.

If you are seeking to make a response in confidence, we would also be grateful if you would annex any confidential information, or provide a non-confidential summary, so that we can publish the non-confidential aspects of your response.

Any personal data you provide to us will be used for the purposes of this consultation and will be handled in accordance with our privacy notice which sets out how we comply with the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.

Consent

In responding to this consultation you consent to us:

• handling your personal data for the purposes of this consultation;
• publishing your response on our website (unless you have indicated to us that you wish for your response to be treated as confidential as set out above.)

Your consent to either of the above can be withdrawn at any time. Further information about how we handle your personal data and your rights is set out in our privacy notice.

Format of responses

So that we are able to apply web standards to content on our website, we would prefer that you email us your response either in Microsoft Word format or OpenDocument Text (.odt) format. ODT files have a fully open format and do not rely on any specific piece of software.

If you send us a PDF document, please:

• create it directly from an electronic word-processed file using PDF creation software (rather than as a scanned image of a printout); and
• ensure that the PDF's security method is set to no security in the document properties.