Hampshire County Council and North Somerset Council have discussed the potential reinstatement of abandoned railway lines in their counties despite the recent axing of the Restoring Your Railways scheme.
Last month, chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed that certain UK infrastructure projects “will not move forward” as the government looks to fill a £22bn hole that was discovered in its audit of public finances.
Among those was the Restoring Your Railway programme of which the cancellation will save £85M according to the chancellor.
The Restoring Your Railways scheme was intended to bring abandoned railways back into service. It has successfully delivered the renewed Dartmoor Line and the Northumberland line, as well as new stations including White Rose on the Huddersfield Line, Thanet Parkway in Kent and Marsh Barton in Devon.
Further lines that were hoping to be restored through the programme included the Ivanhoe Line and many more.
With Reeves' announcement, a councillor at Hampshire County Council has stated he still believes the council’s pledge to reopen The Waterside Line will go ahead.
The Waterside Line, also known as the Fawley branch line, is a 14.5km branch line that connects Totton and Fawley in Hampshire and once served the areas of Marchwood, Hythe and Fawley, near Southampton.
The line closed to passenger services in 1966, but thanks to funding from the Department for Transport’s (DfT) Restoring Your Railway initiative, Network Rail had been developing proposals to reintroduce passenger services.
As part of the plans to reopen the line, passenger services would be restored from Southampton Central to an upgraded station at Marchwood and a brand-new station in Hythe.
This would require the introduction of new railway infrastructure, particularly in the Hythe and Marchwood areas.
Speaking to NCE, Hampshire County councillor David Harrison said: “All may not be lost as far as the Waterside Line is concerned.
“One of the strongest reasons it may survive the government review of the Restoring Our Railways Fund is that most of the necessary infrastructure is already in place. It can be implemented at a fraction of the cost of other railway schemes.
“It was always considered one of the most cost effective projects and could potentially have a customer base of some 69,000 people.
“Hopes have been raised by the presence of a Network Rail test train being spotted on the line just this week.”
North Somerset Council also remains committed to reopening the Portishead to Bristol rail line, despite the government cancelling the Restoring Your Railway programme.
Plans for the Portishead Branch Line, also known as MetroWest Phase 1, will see the disused branch line between Portishead and Pill rebuilt, with passenger services reintroduced to Bristol and beyond as part of the government’s Restoring Your Railway programme. It will also see stations at Portishead and Pill reinstated.
Passenger services were discontinued in 1964 as part of the Reshaping of British Railways report and then freight was discontinued in 1981 but the railway was not dismantled.
The £152M plans to reopen the abandoned line were given the go ahead by former transport secretary Mark Harper in November 2022.
Network Rail was due to deliver all the railway scope of works for the project and the re-alignment of Quays Avenue in Portishead. It launched a search for contractors to build the proposed line in February 2022, and VolkerFitzpatrick was awarded the £50M design and build contract in February 2023.
Work on the line was due to begin this August.
North Somerset Council leader and executive member for major projects Mike Bell said: “The Portishead to Bristol rail line is a hugely important scheme for us and one that will make a significant difference to the lives of local people, both now and in the future.
“We remain absolutely committed to reopening the line and Network Rail were shortly due to submit our full business case to the DfT.
“Full business case approval is the final step needed before we can get spades in the ground for construction.”
Bell indicated the scale of work and money raising required to reopening the line.
He said: “It’s taken years of hard work to come this far. We were the country’s first passenger scheme to secure a Development Consent Order (DCO) to re-open a branch line.
“We’ve risen to financial challenges created by inflation and rising costs across the construction industry, securing an extra £15.5M in funding from the Department for Transport, whilst pledging of a further £10M of our own.
“Though we understand the difficult decisions facing national government, we believe there continues to be a strong case for the investment into the Portishead to Bristol rail line. This is a shovel-ready scheme that we can deliver – and for which on-the-ground preparatory work has already begun.
“We just need government support to make it happen.
“Alongside the West of England Combined Authority and Network Rail, we will continue to make the case for this project and work with the new MP for North Somerset constituency, Sadik Al-Hassan, to do everything we can to secure support from the DfT.”
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