THE East Coast Main Line franchise will return to private control whoever moves into Downing Street this week.

Elaine Holt, chairwoman of publicly- run East Coast, said plans to hand the franchise back to the private sector in November next year, and a £17m investment programme in the meantime, would go ahead regardless of which party was in government.

Mrs Holt was speaking six months after East Coast, an arms-length company set up by the Labour government, took control of the franchise following National Express’ decision to hand it back.

In July last year, MPs in a Commons debate called for the line to remain in public hands for 15 years.

But Mrs Holt said: “There is European legislation that says that has to happen, so it doesn’t really matter who is in Government.

“We have a job to do and part of that is returning the franchise to the private sector.

“It is our job to improve it and return it in better shape.”

Despite expected public sector cuts, East Coast is a premium paying franchise and receives no direct subsidy from Government. Its projects are self-financing, meaning, Mrs Holt said, that investment plans, including an upgrade of about £2m to Newcastle station, would go ahead.

The inability of National Express to make the line profitable was the second failure in less than three years, following GNER’s announcement that it could no longer afford to run the route.

Mrs Holt said: “It recently has had a couple of owners but we have a very sound financial footing.”

Despite a “really good” first six months, Mrs Holt was disappointed that nature had contributed to 87 per cent of trains running to time, below her target of 89 per cent.

Mrs Holt said: “The only thing we have been lacking is a plague of locusts.

We have had floods, volcanic ash and snow. We have managed to get people to their destination throughout these challenging times and it means the performance has not met our expectations.”

The line had to cope with an extra 32,000 passengers during the disruption to air services caused by volcanic ash.

She added that the reaction of staff had been “incredibly positive”, with guard Graeme Wright, from Newcastle, elected as employee director to attend board meetings on behalf of the staff.

Earlier this year, it emerged that a 250mph rail network from 2030 would end at Leeds, under initial government proposals.

When asked if the North-East being shut out of plans for highspeed rail would make the service less attractive to purchasers she said: “From East Coast’s perspective it is important our railway gets investment in parallel with high speed.

“The railway is important for the North-East and the business community, and we want to make sure we don’t forget how important it is.”