Summary
The view from the top of business. Presented by Evan Davis, The Bottom Line cuts through confusion, statistics and spin to present a clearer view of the business world, through discussion with people running leading and emerging companies. The programme is broadcast first on BBC Radio 4 and later on BBC World Service Radio, BBC World News TV and BBC News Channel TV.
Evan and his executive panel discuss the business of building and running infrastructure - how good is the UK at developing and delivering it? They also swap thoughts on the pros and cons of media training.
Joining Evan in the studio are Steve Holliday, chief executive of international electricity and gas company National Grid plc; Nicola Shaw, chief executive of High Speed One, the Channel Tunnel high-speed rail line; Philip Dilley, chairman of global design, engineering and consulting company Arup Group.
Producer: Ben Crighton Editor: Stephen Chilcott.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this program. |
| 0:02.7 | In this edition of the bottom line, Evan Davis and his executive guests discuss infrastructure and media training. |
| 0:10.0 | Hello and welcome to the program. |
| 0:12.3 | Roads, bridges, tunnels, pipelines, runways, cables, they're all infrastructure. |
| 0:17.9 | And without them, a modern functioning society is neither modern nor really |
| 0:22.0 | functioning. And today we'll be talking about the business of infrastructure, building it and |
| 0:27.1 | running it. And on a perhaps more mundane level, I'll ask my guests about media training. |
| 0:32.9 | Have they had it? Did they really need it? But before any of that, let's just quickly meet my three guests. |
| 0:39.0 | And first up is Steve Holliday, Chief Executive of National Grid, one of the world's largest |
| 0:43.9 | utilities. So Steve, it was part of the Central Electricity Generating Board in the UK, |
| 0:49.2 | just carrying electricity around on cables and pylons, but it's a lot different. |
| 0:53.6 | Yes, it is. That was a long time ago now, actually. |
| 0:56.3 | It was just the, as you say, high voltage electricity system in England and Wales. |
| 1:01.2 | Today we run the high pressure gas system in the UK, |
| 1:04.3 | own half the gas pipes in the UK as well, |
| 1:06.9 | and have a third of our company in the north-east of the US. |
| 1:09.5 | We deliver energy to 8 million consumers in the north-east of the US. So it's an energy delivery business. Gas and electricity. Gas and it's literally 50-50 electricity gas. So it's very evenly split. All right. Well, also with us is Nicola Shaw, chief executive of High Speed One, the high-speed railway that runs between the Channel Tunnel in Kent |
| 1:28.9 | through to St. Pancras Station in the centre of London. And Nicola, your line is going to be |
| 1:35.0 | the gateway to the Olympics. You're going to be carrying many, many of the spectators through |
| 1:39.1 | to the Olympic Games. We can't wait to see how you're going to do it. Yeah, it only take |
| 1:43.1 | seven minutes from St. Pancras to Stratford. So it's going to be very busy during the game. So a completely different service pattern. We're going to run 12 trains an hour all day, every day, except from about 3 o'clock in the morning till about 5 o'clock in the morning when we're going to go down to about 6 trains an hour. So really intense. We've done lots of work in advance And then during the games |
| 1:44.1 | We're going to do no work go down to about six trains an hour. So really intense. We've done lots of work in advance. |
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