Could someone briefly explain the difference between HLOS, GRIP and CPs?
HLOS = high level output strategy. This is what the government wants 'the railway' to undertake during the next 5 year 'control period' - that being referred to as a CP. The reason it is an 'output' strategy is that in theory the government specify what they want only in terms of capacity, eg 'increase capacity into Waterloo by 25% by 2019' might be in the HLOS, then Network Rail come up with details on how to achieve that. The HLOS is accompanied by a budget - this is known as the SOFA, statement of funds available.
Normally you'll see the CP defined by a number - we are currently in CP4 which is from April 2009 to March 2014.
The present debate is all about what is to be done in CP5 which is the 5 year period from April 2014-March 2019.
GRIP stands for Governance of Railway Investment Projects, it is a system of railway 'project planning milestones', such that GRIPn (where n= 1 to 8) is a shorthand way of describing the stage an individual project is at. The GRIP stages are as follows:
1. Output definition
2. Pre feasibility
3. Option Selection
4. Single option development
5. Detailed design
6. Construction
7. Scheme handback
8. Project close out.