Reversing Beeching.
MPs are competing for £500 million worth of railway revival money - but will any of their pet projects actually get built? Having worked on one of the bids, HOWARD JOHNSTON presents a unique insight into what makes a good proposal
THE Government’s latest Restoring Your Railway Fund - better known as ‘Reversing Beeching’ - has boldly promised to help reopen closed lines and stations. But should we take it seriously? After all, it is only £500 million.
MPs across England and Wales publicly put their names (and possibly their reputations) on the line in their applications to the Department for Transport for kickstart money before the June 19 deadline. Many of them stand to be disappointed in a few weeks’ time, when the initial list of 50 is whittled down to just ten.
Some of the ideas appear doomed for the dustbin from the very outset because they have stirred up political infighting and point-scoring. Other well-known schemes are notably absent from the DfT list because the local MP would not support them.
Cynics of ‘Reversing Beeching’ are out in force. They point out that while the ‘prizes’ of £50,000 to fund the first 75% of a study and an outline business case are a useful starting point, you don’t get much railway for £100m. We all know that £10m won’t even build a station.
Also, judging by the time it is taking to rehabilitate such no-brainers as Bristol-Portishead, Skipton-Colne and Wisbech-March, as well as the continued emphasis on road building (£25 billion), how many good ideas will actually come to fruition?
After all, local authorities have wasted so much money over the years on trying to incorporate rail into their development plans that they have ceased bothering.
However, Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris has conceded that ‘Reversing Beeching’ is only a
“light touch” at this stage. At the same time, there is no room for ‘Wouldn’t it be nice?’ romantics who might be stirred with emotion associated with the word ‘Beeching’ and what he was told to do to our network in the early 1960s.
Instead, Heaton-Harris is involving high-level bodies such as county councils, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and occasionally consultants. Campaign groups have often made a valuable contribution because of their immense local knowledge.
The applications are a mixed bag, ranging from potentially expensive complete branch reinstatements and takeovers of ‘preserved’ lines to new stations, passing loops and improvements to services (not forgetting improving the footsteps at Carshalton Beeches station).
The big question is: does the Government have the guts to go for the big items, or will it just tinker at the edges?
The forthcoming shortlist will reveal all. The DfT has already made it clear that there is no pass or fail with ‘Reversing Beeching’, and that it will offer losers guidance for a fresh attempt when another round of bids is invited in November.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on record as saying that moving towards economic equality is important, so surely rail will help this. With increasing unpopularity in the polls over his handling of COVID-19, he wants easy wins to create new jobs and improve education and healthcare.
There is certainly an imbalance over public transport, and both the Conservatives and Labour are guilty of pandering to the road lobby at the time of Beeching’s
The Reshaping of Britain’s Railways report published in 1963.
Many mistakes were made, and what remains of the national rail network is threadbare in places because some counties (Dorset is a good example) were not prepared to provide social subsidies when they became allowable after Barbara Castle’s 1968 Transport Act.
Today’s rules are not even what they were a couple of years ago. Notably, the Treasury will not be applying its usual rigid Benefit:Cost Ratio (BCR) rules, whereby schemes have to primarily prove their economic worth.
Instead, the in-word now seems to be regeneration, maybe because HS2 has driven a coach and horses through BCR, having been given state approval despite not immediately washing its financial face.
Case study: Hunstanton The author has gained first-hand insight into the ‘Reviving Beeching’ scheme through his involvement in the revival of the 16-mile
King’s Lynn-Hunstanton line, in what is officially recognised as the economic blackspot of West Norfolk.
It is economically blighted by a lack of opportunities for young people and an ageing population. It suffers from a lack of easy access to the jobs magnets of Cambridge and London, and over-dependence on seasonal tourism.
Through a series of private webinars, the DfT has clearly conveyed its message on how to complete an application, although there have been some inconsistencies as to how much detail is required at this early stage.
Although it may not succeed, the Hunstanton railway bid has not taken any chances. From a virtual standing start, the DfT has received a brand new 122-page professional consultants’ report paid for entirely by Norfolk County Council (NCC), with the offer of more money if needed.
The Hunstanton project is one of only two across the whole of East Anglia, and the promoters have made sure that it ticks most
of the DfT boxes. It shakes off the stigma of Sir John’s Betjeman’s scratchy 1961 film of a journey along the line, and the ornate but somewhat irrelevant Royal station at Wolferton on the Sandringham Estate (which we would not reopen anyway). Four possible alignments have been identified, with no tunnels and only a few small bridges.
While other bidders will moan about Beeching’s crimes, the Hunstanton line was not actually on his closure list at all. In fact, BR ran the line into the ground by stopping through services and excursions, and then by disallowing any revenue that was not locally generated.
This was a kiss of death as ‘Paytrains’ could not possibly maintain viability - and when stations became vandalised after being stripped of their staff, and the diesel multiple units were filthy cast-offs on parole from the scrapyard, the line’s demise was inevitable.
Last autumn, by chance before the ‘Restoring Beeching’ idea was promulgated, the King’s Lynn-Hunstanton Rail Group took the bull by the horns and made a presentation to the full NCC membership. It secured almost unanimous support. This was after it was embarrassingly pointed out that the Hunstanton area was not named even once in its transport strategy.
Fast forward to the present, and it will be interesting to discover how many of the 50 accepted promoters have done their homework, with particular reference to new housing, education and healthcare.
How many have taken the trouble to canvass train operators about the effects of increased traffic on existing routes, fill-in extensions of electrification, and provision of rolling stock?
The King’s Lynn-Hunstanton group has done all of this, as well as demonstrating how a railway could ease Lynn’s inner traffic congestion and how a new park-and-ride station could serve the regional hospital and draw in Cambridge-bound commuters from the isolated Norfolk towns of Fakenham and Swaffham.
It is also crucial to get your local MP onside and get him/ her to commit the Prime Minister to a statement that DfT officials cannot ignore. Thus it was in the House of Commons on June 23, when ‘Reversing Beeching’ sponsor and recently elected West Norfolk Conservative MP James Wild teased the headline-making “We are doing a huge amount for coastal communities that have been left behind” statement out of Boris Johnson, including a specific recommendation to visit Hunstanton.
Wild knows how to play the political game, working as a private aide to the PM as well as being on the Public Accounts Committee. But will he get the railway he wants?