Okehampton reopening heads list of proposed South West rail upgrades
A major series of rail upgrades in the South West has been proposed, including doubling the Salisbury-Exeter line, reopening the Exeter-Okehampton-Plymouth ‘Northern Route’ (also the subject of a separate bid), upgrading the ‘Tarka Line’, and introducing passenger trains to Padstow and Fowey.
Other suggested schemes are reinstating the St Dennis Junction to Parkandillack line to allow a Newquay-Truro service, and running revenue services on the West Somerset Railway.
Lord Berkeley and Michael Byng, the authors of the Greater South West Rail Improvements discussion paper, believe all of their schemes could be completed for just over £1 billion.
They say Salisbury-Exeter doubling would cost around £382 million, the ‘Northern Route’ £426m, the Tarka Line upgrade £17m, Bodmin Parkway-Padstow £31m, Bodmin-Fowey £5m, Newquay-Truro £181m, and the West Somerset Railway upgrade £11.8m. However, there is little detail about how the proposed schemes would operate or fit into existing timetables. Neither are predicted journey times quoted.
They point out that Gross Value Added per hour worked is lower in the South West than in much of the rest of England (Cornwall’s is lowest of all), but argue that the wider South West economy is worth £64.4bn, which they say is almost double the size of Greater Manchester or the West Midlands.
Berkeley was public affairs manager of Eurotunnel from 1984 to 1994, and chaired the Rail Freight Group from 1997 to 2018. He was also deputy chairman of the Oakervee Review into HS2. Byng is a quantity surveyor and construction economist.
On the report’s publication, Berkeley called for greater transport investment for the South West, saying: “Government’s commitment to rebalancing the economy from the South East to the Midlands and North, most recently by the reported creation of a Northern Transport Acceleration Council with £6bn funding, must also be applied to the South West where a contribution of less than 1% of the cost of HS2 would bring massive benefits to this region.”