According to the Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership (SELRAP), the government’s recent announcement of a long list of projects to compensate for the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester completely ignores East Lancashire.
The compensation transport projects are designed to Level Up the country, but not a penny has been promised to East Lancashire. That seems astonishing as Accrington, right in the heart of East Lancashire, was where Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt relaunched the Conservative Party’s election manifesto commitment to Levelling Up. Also, statistics show that East Lancashire is one of the most deprived places in England.
Last July the group met the Shadow Transport Minister to put forward the case for reopening the Skipton to Colne line, and in August it reported that Transport for the North had ignored East Lancashire after the group studied the statutory sub-national transport bodies’ latest strategy.
SELRAP was formed in 2001 by a group of like-minded individuals who have been working with Government Ministers, civil servants, and Network Rail to reinstate the 12 miles of the strategic trans-Pennine railway line between Skipton and Colne.
With over 500 individual members and affiliates, SELRAP has grown to be one of the most influential rail campaigning groups in the country, whilst its Executive committee combines a wealth of experience from a wide range of disciplines including the rail industry, heavy industry, Information Technology, the legal world, and the political sphere.
The chair of the Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership, Peter Bryson, said “If this government wants a public transport project that is tailor-made to level up deprived communities, then the Skipton to Colne project is it!
“This project requires a tiny fraction of the funding just released by the cancellation of HS2. Members of Parliament along the route all fully support this vital project and they want it delivered quickly. The Government needs to put the money where its mouth is”.
Responses
It seems strange that the Skipton to Colne line ever got closed in the first place as it was never on the Breeching list, it’s track bed has been left in place and not built upon except for one small steel framed building.
There is a need for one new bridge over the the River Aire near Skipton, the placement of which would allow the line to join the line north out of Skipton before the bypass which would save money and could be a triangular junction allowing routes north and south, a method would need to be found to dive under/over a dual carriage way at Colne.
This route also happens to be one of the lowest over the Pennie Hills and could take freight off the other lines, and according to Network Rail it would be easier that the Borders Line to reconstruct.
The most resent estimate for reopening was £80 million, that a drop in the ocean compared to HS2.