‘Restoring Your Railway’ announcement due

THE Department for Transport has indicated it expects to give details “in the coming weeks” of the next schemes to progress as part of its ‘Restoring Your Railway’ (RYR) programme. As no new bids have been invited since the closure of round three of the competition (for which winners were announced last October), the upcoming announcement will relate to applications that have already been submitted. In November 2021, just eight months after the Government announced £40.5 million of investment in the project, the restoration of services between Exeter and Okehampton became the first scheme supported by RYR to reach fruition. Track relaying and upgrading work allowed the route to reopen to regular non-seasonal passenger traffic after a gap of almost 50 years. For successful RYR applicants awaiting feedback to develop their business cases, however, progress has been less dramatic. A proposal to reinstate passenger services on the route between Chesterfield and Sheffield via Barrow Hill and Killamarsh was announced in May 2020 as one of 10 first round winners of RYR funding to assist the development of a strategic outline business case (SOBC). South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) submitted the SOBC for the project to the DfT in early 2021. Since then, it has been awaiting official approval to progress to the next stage of the business case. SYMCA told The RM the decision had “been delayed due to other pressures taking-up Government time” but was expected “imminently”. Having been successful in securing SOBC funding for plans to reinstate a rail link between Consett and Newcastle in round two of the competition, Durham County Council’s head of transport Dave Wafer said that the authority had submitted its SOBC to the DfT in November 2021. He added: “This is currently being assessed, with a decision expected later in the year.” The DfT confirmed that it had received SOBCs from all 10 successful first round and all but one of the 15 successful second round RYR bidders. Round three winners are still working on their initial business cases prior to submission. A DfT spokesman added: “For schemes which have submitted Strategic Outline Business Cases, we are considering next steps with a decision on the next tranche to progress anticipated in the coming months.”