The Mid Devon District Council has expressed its disappointment with the government’s confirmation of the cancellation of the plan to reopen Cullompton station in Devon.
The confirmation was given to Mid Devon District Council in a letter sent by the Minister of State for Rail to the local MP confirming that the reopening, to be financed from the Restoring Your Railway (RYR) fund, has been withdrawn.
According to the letter, withdrawal of funding is because of the challenging financial picture the new Government has inherited.
A new station at Cullompton, 15 miles north of Exeter, would have been a vital piece of infrastructure to help residents of Cullompton place less reliance on road transport, thereby easing pressure associated with Junction 28 of the nearby M5.
It was also planned that the new station would be an integral part of enabling the Culm Garden Village.
Mid Devon District Council will now attempt to find whether there is any possibility of either reversing the decision, or at least, seek some clarity over what the new Government plans to do to help the other long-standing infrastructure needs of the area, and to unlock key elements of delivering new housing stock.
![GWR IET Train at Kemble railway station](https://www.railadvent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GWR-IET-Train-at-Kemble-railway-station-750x533.jpg)
Cullompton is not alone in having funding withdrawn, as the planned reopening of the Ivanhoe line between Derby and Burton has also been cancelled.
As the Chancellor set out in her statement, the Transport Secretary will be reviewing the full transport investment portfolio, including other projects outside rail. Whilst we will attempt to consider the Wellington and Cullompton stations’ project as part of that review, I want to be clear, at this stage, that the Government will not be able afford all projects under the funding that we have available.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister for Rail, stated in his letter
Rest assured we, along with our local MPs and local authority partners, will do all that we can to help re-focus the new Government into providing critical funding to enable the delivery of the key road/rail infrastructure that is so vital to unlocking housing delivery in our district.
Councillor Jane Lock, Cabinet Member for People, Development and Deputy Leader
We are extremely disappointed with this news, however we remain optimistic as this project would help towards one of the new Government’s planned aspirations – to see national housing delivery of 1.5m new units during the current parliament.
Councillor Simon Clist, Cabinet Member for Housing, Assets and Property and Deputy Leader
Responses
This is just typical Labour lies about the economy they inherited. They will certainly trash the economy themselves. So much for a green transport policy. Very short-sighted . They have no vision at all and just taking the people of this country for fools.
You are SO right. Labour are an absolute DISASTER for Great Britain.
Labour has very quickly confirmed that they are still anti public transport. The Okehampton line would never have reopened for passengers under Labour. I warned long before they were elected how Prescott promised 25 new tramways and only 1 was built. Three tram schemes which had already had millions spent on them were scrapped by Darling.
Only reason there’s any kind of financially challenging picture, has NOTHING to do with the state of the finances prior to July 4th, and EVERYTHING to do with Labours unsupported and uncosted £38bil they have anounced since they got it, mostly on public sector pay rises and demands from unions, but billions going in overseas climate aid.
This new lot care nothing for majoriy British groups .
We should take our hats off to this new lot. It took Blair and Brown 11 years before had opened up a casum in the finances, this lot manage that in under a month! And despite what they claim, there was no 22bil black hole before they anounced a pay rise for the civil service and other public sector workers, at double the rate of inflation (jnr doctors it was quadruple the rate of inflation) and all cases back dated!
I live near jt 28 I Cullompton. The town gets completely blocked with traffic. If the M5 is closed nearby then the whole area becomes gridlocked. New houses are being built everywhere in the town, which we need, but no improvement in infrastructure, no new schools, no extra GPs. I was looking forward to the train stopping in Cullompton. It runs from Exeter to London and has a stop at Taunton, where I worked for many years. It is not a case of a new line, just re-opening the station, which may have to be resited slightly up the track, as the platforms are currently sited behind the services. I believe it would have helped to ease congestion and provided a good way to reach Exeter or Taunton for work. The proposed garden village is going to make things a lot worse, especially with limited transport options and with most families having to have two cars as a result.
And the train drivers union is asking for a 14% pay rise.
You think that would stop the 5k of houses going in then but no, not when they can make thousands from the construction industry, then have the cheek to set service charges higher than council tax because the council are too poor to provide services for these new housing estates. Oh and then only collect our rubbish every three weeks because its more environmentally friendly but really its because there are too many houses to serve now. I’m sick of these projects being described as eco friendly/ carbon emission reduction when their just a smoke screen excuse to build more houses without infrastructure. When will they wake up? It can take over an hour to get in and out of town now, whereas if the train station got put back in I could walk home in 20 minutes.
im afraid Starmer iis already showing signs of changing hisstance from good chap to politician
This labour government are more right wing than the tories.
They are an absolute disgrace.
Expect they green belt to be destroyed.. Only the highly paid will benefit from green belt housing developments
Older and disabled people victims of discrimination. Of course this is illegal. So expect the equality act to be decimated.
Public transport spending cut back even further.
Don’t expect anything from this government.
Only their wealthy paymasters will benefit from this government.
And its less than two months since they came to power
Much worse will be coming.
Incidentally, I have been a lifelong supporter of the labour party.
Not any more.
A lot of the previous Government’s plans were uncosted and in a lot of cases just pipe dreams. Some realism creeping back in now we are being run by grown-ups?
But they can pay for endless reviews and consultations covering what we already know!
If labour are right i would hate to see left wing
And yet the Welsh and English governments are to electrify the North Wales coast route. Or are they only saying that to try and keep the lame excuse of a government we have in Wales. Perhaps they will do the work and then limit it to 20mph .
Meanwhile, funding for the South East continues as normal
Just tbe start of the many disappointments this government is going to set out now they have 5 years to help ruin the country. They penalise road users , the roads are a mess. And our public transport is a mess. Mmm lets get brittain moving. The conservatives may have spent to much time distroying themselves from the inside out but this lot. OMG what has happened already to Our Country first solgan..
It’s a shame but you should look to the conservative governments of the past for the blame and not to a new government who are now learning just what a mess those governments have left.. 14 years have almost ruined this country and now lixal infrastructure is having to pay the price.
Total and utter rubbish. Since July 5th, labour have agreed to spend £38bill in unsupported finances. If you think the £22bil black hole in labours finances are due to the previous administration, you need to wake up and stop dreaming. No one wanted this lot. They got less votes than when mishandled by corbyn. The simply got a massive majority because of a 22‰ swing from the torys to reform!
Labour created a shortage of funds since July 5th, including 18bil going to overseas funding!
Not to mention the fact the UK has never recovered from Blair and Brown years that left the UK total bankrupt.
Following the 2008 global financial crash.
You do realise that the last government who had 14 years did absolutely nothing and left the country Broke… Tories are criminals
Totally right. Walpole living in a dream world!
Rowing back already priority focussed on the bloated public sector pay and gold plated pensions black hole? As Jim Royle would say My a**e !
Surely getting the drivers back at full availability is huge news for the railway! For too long the TOCs relied on goodwill and Rest Day working to keep the trains running. How many office based people would “pop into the office for 8 hrs” on their day off? That’s what has kept the railway running for the last 20+ years! I know..I was one of them!!
Well said Trevor. You are absolutely right to make that point but it seems discussion about the issue splits on political party lines. A shame.
Not many workers get paid £80k+ for a 4 day week and a good pension scheme.
Caving into any union demands, only leads to more damands.
Unfortunately the large pay increase for train drivers has NOT “got them back at full availalbility”.
It was awarded without requiring drivers to work at weekends, so all trains at weekends depend on voluntary overtime.
And, following the pay award, ASLEF has announced another series of strikes by drivers of LNER trains.
All these disused railway lines, that could be put back in service to ease congestion on the roads would be welcomed,instead of a direct train say from Northampton to Peterborough I have to take a bus get stuck in traffic. The train would take half the time. So why can’t the unused railways be brought back into service
Well said, many of these lines should never have been closed.
One journey in particular comes to mind, Sudbury to Cambridge , until the line closed in 1967 this journey took an hour, now it’s nearer 3 involving a bus to Bury St Edmunds and then a train onwards to Cambridge.
The route from Exeter to Plymouth via Tavistock is another example of the folley of line closures , no alternative route now when the main mine is blocked…I could go on.
This isn’t even a disused line – there are regular XCountry and GWR trains running past Cullompton 2 or 3 times an hour. The problem is that our overly bureaucratic processes mean that even building the most basic station costs a fortune. The Northumberland Line is costing £300m to reopen, and that is a line that has remained open for freight, but just needed new stations and some upgrades. Many closed lines have been built on and so there isn’t an available trackbed to use through towns and cities, so turning the clock back to 1960 isn’t an option. Yes, we want to see more rail connections, but until we can get the costs under control and figure out how to pay for them, we’re not going to see a lot happen in the near future.
Stevie D is absoutely right about costs. Marsh Braton Station cost went from £4.5 million to over £16, million over about 14 years, because, it is related, NationalRail increased its specifications. For 90,000 local train journeys p.a., I hardly think that is a good business case. There was a the parallel problem of cost escallation on HS2 of course, but common sense eventually intervened there. NationalRail or whatever follows must find ways of reducing infrastructure costs if the system is ever going to develop again.
On the other hand, It is easy to understand the reluctance to invest with the ever-present threat of the rail unions lurking in the background. A much greater proportion of long-distance freight OUGHT to be using the sytem, but the threat of the nation being held to ransome because of dependence on a union dominated railway must surely be the reason governments of all colours have never in recent years been too keen to re-invest.
No surprise given money to the drivers unions running the country now
Any spare cash is for the train drivers. How long will we have to wait before the new government delivers some genuinely good news for the railway?
History says forever and it won’t.