Competition for Great British Railways' headquarters | Great British Railways Transition Team

On 4 October 2021, the Secretary of State for Transport announced that a competition would take place to identify the town or city for the headquarters of Great British Railways, confirming that it would be outside of London.

To take part in the competition, local authorities had to submit an Expression of Interest. Recognising the broad interest across Britain, we accepted from all forms of local and devolved government – with sub-national transport bodies and local enterprise partnerships encouraged to support applications in their area.

GBRTT formulated and shared in advance six selection criteria to assess applications against. They were:

Applicants needed to demonstrate how they are currently and plan in the future to support delivery of the government’s levelling up missions and reducing regional disparities across the UK, as set out in the Levelling Up White Paper.

We aimed to choose a location that will deliver effective synergies with other levelling up initiatives, while also ensuring that opportunities and benefits are shared fairly between and within regions. We looked at any similar rail and public sector projects and headquarters plans linked to a location as a consideration within the selection process.

When selecting the location of the headquarters we considered appropriate alignment of the applicant with the government’s Places for Growth programme.

Locations had to be easy to get to by rail and other sustainable modes and well connected to the nations and regions of Great Britain. Applicants needed to demonstrate a location’s ability to support social and economic ties between towns and cities across the UK.

Applicants should have demonstrated how the location can effectively enhance engagement with customers, the private sector and the wider rail industry. This includes proximity to the supply chain and access to the existing sector workforce.

Applicants should also have demonstrated opportunities for Great British Railways to engage beyond the rail industry, including wider transport, social and economic links.

Applicants should have demonstrated current and historic importance for railway employment, innovation and heritage.

Applicants should have demonstrated how they can maximise efficiency and affordability, including through use of the existing publicly and/or railway owned estate, to deliver value for money for taxpayers and customers.

Applicants should have demonstrated the importance of the national headquarters to their local communities, identity and values. This could have been shown through existing community links to rail and the current importance of rail as a transport service locally and regionally.

Shortlisting

Following strong applications from 42 local authorities across Britain in the competition to find a location for the headquarters of Great British Railways, six locations were shortlisted.

Read the shortlisted bids and the other submitted expressions of interest

The public vote

This stage of the competition gave the public the opportunity to vote for their preferred location from the shortlist. The results were used to measure the level of support for each place and will be considered as part of final decision making.

During the vote, Government Ministers and GBRTT representatives visited each of the shortlisted towns and cities to gain a greater understanding of each place.

The results of the public vote were:

- Derby – 45,164 (22.2% of the vote)

- Doncaster – 40,080 (19.5% of the vote)

- Crewe – 34,416 (16.8% of the vote)

- Birmingham – 29,781 (14.5% of the vote)

- York – 28,234 (13.8% of the vote)

- Newcastle – 27,149 (13.2% of the vote)

The final decision on where GBR HQ would be located was made by the Secretary of State for Transport, taking into account GBRTT’s advice covering both our assessment of all the expressions of interest as well as the public vote.