‘APPALLING’ mistakes in the planning of Network Rail’s electrification of the scheme need to be learned from, a committee of MPs warns today.

The firm’s modernisation of the Great Western route has cast huge doubt over its ability to plan other major projects, according to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.

The committee pointed to ‘staggering and unacceptable’ cost increases of £1.2bn in the space of just a year.

That led Network Rail to ‘defer’ the electrification of track on four sections, including between Didcot and Oxford.

But MPs said they were still not confident it would meet its revised target of delivering the rest of the £2.8bn scheme by December 2018 and criticised the Department for Transport for not holding it to account.

Network Rail has stated ‘every single part of the programme is absolutely on the limit’, it added.

Committee chairman Meg Hillier MP said: “Mismanagement of the Great Western programme has hit taxpayers hard and left many people angry and frustrated.

“This is a stark example of how not to run a major project, from flawed planning at the earliest stage to weak accountability and what remain serious questions about the reasons for embarking on the work in the first place.

“The sums of public money wasted are appalling. Government accepts it got this project badly wrong and must now demonstrate it has learned the lessons.”