MPs back Beeching fund bids for Devon’s ‘Northern Route’
A quartet of local MPs have pledged their support for a bid to establish the case for reopening in full the ‘Northern Route’ from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock.
Sir Geoffrey Cox QC (Torridge and West Devon), Johnny Mercer (Plymouth Moor View), Mel Stride (Central Devon) and Scott Mann (North Cornwall) are sponsoring an application to fund a preliminary Strategic Outline Business Case under the Government’s £500 million ‘Beeching Reversal’ fund, which was launched in January.
The application documents for the Tavistock-Okehampton Re-opening Scheme (TORs), which have been seen by RAIL, will now be considered by the Department for Transport, alongside any other projects which made funding submissions by the March 16 deadline.
Although not yet confirmed, these are believed by RAIL to also include bids to reinstate the former Midland Railway route from Matlock-Buxton, and the line between Lostwithiel and Fowey.
Campaigners for TORs argue that reopening the ‘Northern Route’ as an alternative to the existing and more southerly coastal line between Exeter and Plymouth via Dawlish would offer “the only way to guarantee the resilience of the South West’s network”.
They point to the cost to the regional economy of the twomonth closure of the railway at Dawlish following severe storms in 2014 (believed to have been up to £20 million per day), and the need to maintain rail traffic during times of future weather-related disruption.
A second route would also enable passenger and freight services to continue uninterrupted during blockades of the Dawlish route, which Network Rail will require to complete an extensive programme of resilience works - including the movement of a 2km section of the line up to 30 metres away from the base of cliffs.
Increasing capacity between Plymouth and Exeter is also considered to be one of the longerterm benefits of the scheme.
While backing existing bids to reopen and restore services on sections of the line between Bere Alston-Tavistock and ExeterOkehampton, the TORs bid also incorporates the middle section from Tavistock-Okehampton that was lifted shortly after closure in 1968. It argues that there could be even greater benefits to the South West from reopening it as a through route rather than as two single branches. TORs also fully supports NR’s resilience efforts.
With all significant structures remaining in place, in 2014 NR costed the reinstatement of this 22-mile abandoned section of line at £875m, while campaigners say that journey times from ExeterPlymouth could be just six minutes longer than on the coastal route.
According to TORs, which
was created by a group of senior railway managers and consultants and co-ordinated by RAIL Contributing Writer Andrew
Roden, options for services could include an extension of the hourly Waterloo-Exeter service or of CrossCountry’s hourly service from Manchester-Bristol via Birmingham.
There is believed to be sufficient spare capacity at Laira depot in Plymouth for stock servicing and maintenance, while detailed studies are under way to establish how sufficient capacity can be provided to accommodate additional services during closure periods for the coastal routes.
There could also be benefits for the freight community by avoiding the steeper gradients on the coastal line, which sometimes requires services to be split and then reconnected.
Although no firm timeline has been given, TORs describes the reinstatement of the full ‘Northern Route’ as a long-term ambition, with a phased reopening sought in order to secure consensus among local communities and to “build rail markets before the whole route is re-established, rather than make implementation of the wider scheme harder”.
A consultation on the bid has already commenced. It is at an early stage with parish, town, district, borough, city and county councils along the route and with other key stakeholders, in order to understand the benefits and concerns around the scheme.
Andrea Davis, chairman of the Peninsula Rail Task Force, said: “PRTF supports the bid for phased redevelopment of the former railway between Exeter and Plymouth, via Okehampton and Tavistock, as part of the Government’s Beeching Reopening Ideas Fund. As outlined in PRTF’s 20-year plan, the reintroduction of the line would deliver improved travel to work connectivity across the region, with added tourism benefits for Dartmoor National Park as well as links to north Cornwall.”
Professor Judith Petts CBE, vicechancellor of Plymouth University, added: “Our single railway is under threat from a combination of sea level rise and the increasing number and intensity of storms. The two-month closure that followed the Sea Wall breaches in 2014 provides evidence of the economic impact arising from the lack of resilience in our transport infrastructure.
“We are therefore fully supportive of the plan to re-establish the ‘Northern Route’ and consider this development a matter of urgency to provide essential resilience.”