Today, Rock Rail and our subsidiary Rock Road (together ‘Rock’) are proud to announce the opening of our first regional office located in the North West of England (No1 Mann Island on Liverpool’s Albert Dock). This office will be focused on supporting regional and city authorities to help meet their Net Zero targets through the funding of zero-emission buses, trains and infrastructure.
This decision comes off the back of our sponsorship of Net Zero North West at COP26 where we supported the Northern Mayors and their decarbonisation agendas. Rock’s newly established regional presence represents our endorsement of the ‘levelling up’ agenda as devolution takes place across the country which will lead to an increase in the requirement of private finance to support Northern transport focused projects.
Rock is the leading financier of new UK rolling stock having deployed more than £3bn of institutional capital to purchase over 40% of all new passenger trains procured for the network; now, we are looking beyond rail to further accelerate the rate of decarbonisation in the UK. Rock provides a vehicle for institutions such as pension funds to invest directly into large scale transport projects in the rail, bus and energy sectors – allowing local money to support local change and bring benefits to both the region and the environment.
Rock takes on residual value risk with all of its successful projects, generating a strong long term alignment with the success of our investment and justifying our need to partner with key stakeholders in the zero-emission technology sector who are best able to manage and divert risk away from the public sector.
Rock have had a long association with the Liverpool City Region originating from being appointed as Commercial Director on the procurement and delivery of the highly-successful Mersey Gateway Bridge project in 2011. Our affinity with the North progressed beyond this project with senior members of the Rock team already situated in York and Glasgow.
Mark Swindell, CEO & Founder of Rock, has stated that “we aim to use our new site as a platform to provide an affordable and efficient route to a zero-emission transport system that will benefit all passengers in the NW region as well as reducing the impact of harmful emissions on the environment.”
Mike Kean, UK Managing Director of Rock Rail and Rock Road said, “we are supporting the North of England on their journey to a zero-emission future. I am clear in my mind that the best way for us to do this is to have a strategic regional office in a location closer to where these discussions are taking place.”
If you would like to hear more information about what we can offer and our activity in the North West, then please get in touch at the following contact details: