Reinstating old railway lines could boost house prices

Our railways are successful and expanding, but their operations must be more joined up and accountable

REOPENING rail lines closed during the Sixties could boost house prices in towns that lost their connections, research has found.

Savills, the estate agent, found that house prices in many of the towns at the end of lines had slipped behind the average price for the county in which they are located.

The agency suggested that, if lines were reopened, an option outlined yesterday by Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, the price of homes could soar. Mr Grayling said he wanted to identify which routes would best boost the economy, encourage house-building and ease overcrowding.

Thousands of stations and hundreds of branch lines were closed between 1964 and 1970 in the wake of a report by Dr Richard Beeching, who was the chairman of British Railways.

Links from Exeter to Okehampton and Newcastle upon Tyne to Ashington are two of the routes that could be brought back into service.

Savills’ analysis found that the towns that had not experienced house price growth in the past 10 years could go up in value. This was particularly the case with more rural locations, the company said. For example, while Exeter house prices are already 4.6per cent above the Devon average, at £258,576, prices in Okehampton are 19.5per cent lower than the average, at £198,969.

Similarly, while prices in Newcastle upon Tyne are 18.2per cent higher than the county average, at £186,168, prices in Ashington are 46.3per cent below the average.

“This means they have more capacity for further house price growth and they may benefit from the improved connectivity into the relevant cities that the reopening of these lines may offer,” Savills said.

Where house prices are above average, adding a new rail link would have little impact, the estate agent said.

Regular users of the railway know only too well how passenger demand has soared since services were privatised two decades ago. It’s why there’s such intense pressure on the network, with so many having to stand on journeys into work, and slow and fast trains competing for limited track space.

Not even the keenest supporters of privatisation could have predicted such remarkable growth. Between 1960 and 1995 alone, demand fell by a third. But since the industry was opened to competition, passenger numbers have more than doubled.

Today, the railway is a critical part of the UK economy, helping connect jobs, communities and lives. That is why this Government is making the biggest investment in the railway since the Victorian era, including a £47.9 billion programme announced in October. As a result, over 1.5 million more train services are running on the network than 20 years ago.

We’re building HS2 and Crossrail, upgrading stations, and introducing thousands of new trains and carriages. We’re modernising the railway fabric around the country. And private operators are contributing billions themselves to boost capacity and improve services.

But we also need to address the structural separation of track and train. With more intensive use of the railway, fragmentation between Network Rail and train operators has undermined accountability, and as a result, problems with services have become more difficult to sort out. We need a more joined-up railway, with greater regional focus to sort out problems fast.

Last year I announced my plans to merge the operations of track and train so one team is responsible for both. We have already begun this process, with an alliance between Network Rail and the South Western franchise. But this is just the start. This week I have set out a more comprehensive vision for the railway that will end the operational divide between track and train, improve the franchising system, and deal with the challenges of an increasingly congested network.

On the East Coast Main Line, we will create Britain’s first integrated regional railway from 2020. The East Coast Partnership between public and private organisations will be operated by a single management, under a single brand and overseen by a single leader. The private partner will have a leading role in defining future plans for route infrastructure.

This is also the right time to look at reopening old lines to add capacity and resilience to our railway.

So we will study options to restore capacity lost under the Beeching and British Rail cuts of the 1960s and 1970s. The Government is already planning to reopen the line from Oxford to Cambridge.

But we will identify other connections that were closed to passengers decades ago, and develop those that best support housing and economic growth.

Opportunities include the Camp Hill extension line in Birmingham which mayor Andy Street has been championing, and relaunching the Henbury line as part of plans to improve rail services around Bristol. Following the Budget announcement of £337 million for new trains on the Metro network in the North East, one promising proposal is to reinstate passenger services on the line from Blyth to Ashington. We welcome private expertise and enterprise to make the most of these opportunities.

The new strategy also sets out how we will improve the passenger experience. Passengers will be compensated when trains are more than 15 minutes late, and we are supporting the introduction of a Rail Ombudsman to ensure customers are treated fairly.

New digital technologies with the potential to reduce crowding and improve train punctuality will be introduced.

If the first stages of the UK’S railway renaissance were reversing decades of decline, and securing long-term funding to update the infrastructure, the next stage will change the way the industry operates. Joined-up teams. Simpler, more accountable structures. Regional teams focused on their own services. And opening up lines that were shut when the fortunes of the industry were very different from those of today.

This is a strategy for a successful, modern railway, that lays the foundation for a new generation, and puts the passenger first.

Chris Grayling is Secretary of State for Transport