Fifteen more Beeching projects receive share of £500m funding
FIFTEEN more proposals to reverse historical cutbacks in passenger services and the size of the rail network have secured development funding.
The latest projects to receive a share of the second round of the Government’s £500 million Restoring Your Railway ‘Ideas
Fund’ were announced on December 3 by Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps.
Each of the schemes has been awarded up to £50,000 to progress plans to reinstate services and stations closed under the Beeching axe of the 1960s.
They include restoring Ferryhill station on the East Coast Main Line in County Durham (closed in 1967), and Beeston & Tarporley between Crewe and Chester (1966).
Meanwhile, closed rail links could also be reopened between Bolton, Radcliffe and Bury in Greater Manchester, and between Stratford-upon-Avon and Honeybourne.
Regular passenger services could return to the Swanage heritage railway, and to a freight-only route that connects the Robin Hood
Line at Kirkby-in-Ashfield with the Midland Main Line at Pye Bridge.
It brings the total number of projects awarded development funding to 25, following the announcement of ten successful first round bids in May ( RAIL 906). These had included the return of passenger services to the Ivanhoe freight-only line from Leicester to Burton and extending the existing Island Line from Shanklin to Ventnor.
“For towns and villages left isolated and forgotten by Beeching cuts, restoring a rail line or a station has the potential to revitalise a community,” said Shapps.
“It breathes new life into our High Streets, drives investment in businesses and housing, and opens new opportunities for work and education.
“By building back with a real focus on better connections and supporting left behind communities, we are delivering our promise to level up this country.”
The Campaign for Better Transport has welcomed the development funding announcement, although it said that far more money would be
needed to move many of the schemes into construction.
It has previously been claimed that £500m would cover the cost of reopening just 25 miles of railway, while CBT estimated in 2019 that more than £5 billion would be needed to deliver a portfolio of 33 reopening schemes and 343 miles of reinstated track over the next 25 years.
CBT Chief Executive Paul Tuohy said: “Reopening a disused rail line can transform an area, and these communities will rightly be celebrating.
“But if we are to do more than carry out studies, a step change in investment is needed. We want to see a commitment to reopen these and many more of the lines closed under the Beeching cuts. The case for reopening rail lines is stronger today than ever - not just to enable more sustainable travel, but to create jobs, tackle social exclusion and help the economy recover.”
The Department for Transport said that it has received a total of 111 bids for funding in the first and second rounds of the Restoring Your Railway ‘Ideas Fund’.
Campaigners and local MPs who have backed so far unsuccessful bids will now have to consider whether to resubmit revised business cases to future funding rounds.
This includes Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart, who sponsored a rejected bid for funding to reinstate the York-Beverley line.
He told the Yorkshire Post: “This is definitely not the end of the line. Support for the project is still there, and there will now be opportunities to strengthen our bid and submit an even better case in a future funding round with the help of feedback and workshops from the Government.”
Details for round three have not yet been announced.