Reopenings special: What hope now for the 'railway deserts'?

With the demise of the Restoring Your Railway fund, have the prospects for rail reopenings ended with it? Joe Campbell reports.

In this article:

• Labour scrapped the Restoring Your Railway fund, disappointing campaigners seeking to reverse Beeching-era rail cuts.
• Critics argue the decision limits economic growth and local connectivity, though some projects may still secure funding.
• Supporters of affected schemes, like the Ivanhoe Line, continue lobbying for funding amid political and financial uncertainties.

Labour’s decision last autumn to scrap the Restoring Your Railway fund was a blow to campaign groups who have long fought to reverse the cuts made to the network by Beeching’s axe.

Launched as part of Boris Johnson’s levelling-up agenda, a railway renaissance for post-Brexit Britain, the scheme’s ditching was no surprise, however, to those whose political antennae have been fine-tuned to observing the Westminster scene.

“We’ve got a new (Labour) government, and this was seen clearly as a Conservative policy,” says Railway Industry Association (RIA) Chief Executive Darren Caplan.

“It wasn’t the biggest scheme in the world, but it sent that signal that the government supported the network and the railway industry, so when it was mentioned around the King’s Speech that it had been cancelled, what was worrying for us was not so much the specific schemes that were in there, but the tone that it sent out, saying the government doesn’t back transport infrastructure projects.”

If there was concern within the body representing the industry’s big and small hitters over what the scrapping said about the incoming government’s attitude to rail, it was an even bigger blow to those who had pinned their hopes on funding.

CRIL, the Campaign to Restore the Ivanhoe Line in the East Midlands, had submitted plans for an hourly passenger service along the 31-mile route between Burton-on-Trent and Leicester, much of it over existing freight-only lines.

Douglas McLay, the group’s Head of Rail Technology, explains: “The great shame about Restoring Your Railway being canned is that it provided a pathway for some of these smaller schemes to get on the radar, and for there being some means, other than unfocused but enthusiastic campaigning, for those to be considered and ranked for their own benefits. That pathway has now disappeared.”

The problem was that here, as across much of Whitehall, the mantra of “we inherited an extremely challenging economic position” meant that the fund was in HM Treasury’s cross hairs, as part of what the Department for Transport described to RAIL as one of “a number of unfunded and unaffordable programmes”.

While admitting that its scrapping “hadn’t come as a bolt from the blue”, McLay is one of many to comment on the speed with which it was wound up.

At first, it had not been clear that it was being closed completely, he says. The Chancellor’s statement had merely mentioned a review of transport projects.

“The objective was to prevent any ‘accidents’, with something really critical being cancelled by a sweep of the hand,” he explains.

“Talking to our contacts at the DfT, we didn’t hold out much hope our line would be included in any work. But the whole RYR programme was swept away and nothing from it was considered worth keeping.”

“It was shut down speedily. The team we had been dealing with at the DfT - we had a few meetings with them for updates, and it was then disbanded when it was finally closed.”

Those whose schemes had been part of the RYR process were not alone in questioning the decision.

Silviya Barrett, Director of Policy and Campaigns at the Campaign for Better Transport, says that in the CBT’s view, the fund had been “very much needed”.

She adds: “We’ve done research about the proportion of stations and lines that were lost because of the Beeching cuts, and in terms of deprived areas, they were more affected than other areas because of that loss of connectivity.

“Rail connectivity is very important to promote growth and economic links in specific areas, so it was very much needed to restore those connections to more areas.”

While others see its demise as having political roots, Barrett accepts that it was not a perfect scheme.

“There had been issues with how the fund was administered and implemented. There were a lot of issues with protracted timelines and the amount of hoops that lots of areas had to jump through, the different assessments that had to be carried out, and the cost of implementation which has been an issue.”

Indeed, in the little over four and a half years between the previous government pledging £500 million towards the fund and Labour shutting it down, only one route - the Dartmoor Line - had fully opened to passengers. A second - the Northumberland Line between Ashington and Newcastle - opened in December 2024.

“We would like to have seen more stations and lines being reopened through the fund, but those that did reopen have been really successful,” says Barrett.

“The Dartmoor Line, for example, had double the amount of journeys - 500,000 in the first three years of operation, twice what was predicted. That’s an example of the high return on investment.

“The Northumberland will cut journey times between destinations from 1hr 10mins to 35 minutes.

“Where the money has been invested, and invested well, it surpasses expectations. The assessment criteria haven’t been correct - the impact has been greater than predicted.”

Since the initial alarm at the cancellation of Restoring Your Railway, RIA’s Darren Caplan says the “mood music” has changed.

That view is based on the budget, with what he describes as “big ticket items” - including HS2 to Euston, Northern Powerhouse Rail and East West Rail - all getting a mention in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ statement.

“I think what’s happened now is that hopefully the new government is realising that rail is a key driver and enabler of economic growth - that’s their big priority,” he says.

“Also, decarbonisation is a big priority for them and rail helps deliver it. And to have an impact, you have to have big schemes - they give you your biggest bang for your buck.”

But where does this leave the “small fry”, as Caplan terms them?

RIA Policy Director Robert Cook says: “The test is: has it been resilient? Has it weathered the political cycle? If it hasn’t, then we need a different way of making decisions and enabling people to progress schemes. If it’s a good scheme and it’s worth doing, who has the ability to keep it going?

“I think there are questions about leveraging local funding, and there have been some discussions about that around RYR. That does need a degree of permission from government about what they will allow local areas to do, but providing you can create that space, that would be one model.

“The other is the integrated transport settlements - the city and regional funding deals. If you are going to give local areas control over funding, I can see those sorts of things being less affected by hitting the buffers on a particular national scheme that has the wrong flavour of branding around it. That’s something the government is looking at, and we should encourage it to stop this flip-flopping in future.”

That’s not much consolation to the Ivanhoe Line campaigners in the East Midlands. Their line runs through a string of local authorities, and there is no regional mayor to speak up for the line. The group says it is now essentially back to “campaigning mode”, to try to retain support for reopening to passenger services.

“We have to get everybody in local government pointing in the same direction,” says Douglas McLay.

“Any individual council doesn’t have much clout with central government or Network Rail, because each individual authority represents only a small portion of the total value of the line.

“There are many areas like ours, particularly ours, because it’s one of the most blatant railway deserts, which are just not fashionable.”

McLay says it was notable how HS2 starting in London was now back in favour, adding: “Northern Powerhouse Rail is another fashionable route supported by influential Labour mayors who have been making a very considerable fuss to get what they want, and it seems there is no voice for smaller schemes.”

Whatever the politics, the case for an Ivanhoe passenger service has certainly not gone away.

Located in what was once the East Midlands coalfield, the end of mining in the area had a huge impact on the local economy.

People travelling greater distances to work, combined with an increase in housing well above the national average, have all put pressure on the single carriageway roads.

Mining has been replaced by logistics, with the line in the ‘golden triangle’ - an area surrounded by good road links to elsewhere, such as the M1, A1, and M42.

“That’s put more traffic on the roads. For example, Jaguar Land Rover just opened its worldwide parts distribution centre off the A444. But there’s no railway for people to travel in on, to work there,” notes McLay.

“There’s been a huge amount of new housing built in the area, and we’re aware of several developments of tens of thousands of homes that have planning permission. The population has risen dramatically. We’re one of the highest areas of population growth in the country. What hasn’t changed is the transport infrastructure.”

The infrastructure issue has also been central to another Restoring Your Railway project, this time close to York - a city synonymous with the rail network.

Haxby, on the northern ring of communities around the city, lost its station not under Beeching, but in the 1930s, when the few who lived in the village found it a lot easier to catch the bus to get into their larger neighbour. Urban sprawl and the rise of the motor car now makes for heavy congestion on the area’s roads.

“There’s not a spare inch of space on the roads,” says Kate Ravilious, Executive Member for Transport on City of York Council.

The northern half of the city, she adds, is “particularly jammed up, and there is a limited opportunity for the reallocation of road space” - for example, creating bus and cycle lanes.

Plans for the new station, on the York to Scarborough Line, were before the council when Restoring Your Railway was scrapped.

“The pitch is well rolled,” according to Peter Kilbane, Deputy Mayor for Transport with York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority.

“It’s a real project, shall I say. Quite a lot of the projects that were in the pipeline seemed to actually only exist in the minds of local MPs.

“The really positive thing for us is that in terms of the RYR projects, the vast majority of them have been taken off the table - and we know that Haxby is still there.”

Some £3.5m in funding for the station had been due to come from the now-defunct fund. The question is whether that will now be found by Whitehall as part of the government spending review, due to be completed in 2025.

Local funding remains in place, explains Ravilious: “We have £4m. It’s there and it’s earmarked, and we’re keeping it that way because we’ve every confidence.”

That confidence had been boosted by a visit to York by former Transport Secretary Louise Haigh, shortly before her sudden resignation.

According to Kilbane, she had been “very, very supportive”, agreeing with the idea that projects such as the station at Haxby were necessary “carrots” to persuade people to make a modal shift in their journeys.

Significantly, in the light of events a few days after Haigh’s York visit, he acknowledges: “But ultimately, it’s going to be a Treasury decision. It’s just whether we get money through the spending review. If we don’t, then we’ll have to reassess at that point. The other thing we’ll have to do at some point, of course, is check on the costs.”

The issue of rising costs, owing to the hiatus in deciding the future of the remaining schemes, is also on the mind of those within the industry.

RIA’s Robert Cook says: “Whenever you get a pause like that on projects, it’s not helpful to the people who have invested time and money in developing it. But that’s symptomatic of what’s been happening across all rail enhancements over recent years. The real question is: how do we break that cycle?”

Haxby’s backers are not the only ones who have been meeting ministerial teams to try to argue their case.

In November, Amanda Hack, the new MP for North West Leicestershire, finally secured time with Rail Minister Lord Hendy to argue for the Ivanhoe Line. Its reopening had featured heavily in her election campaign material.

“The withdrawal of Restoring Your Railway put all the remaining schemes into the main programme, and the review of that is still under way,” she said after the meeting.

Lord Hendy himself, in his previous role as Chair of Network Rail, was seen by campaigners as supportive of the plan.

Hack was guarded about his views, now he is sitting in government: “The main thing is he was listening and open to the conversation, and certainly I’m hoping we made an impression.

“Mile per mile, particularly the Coalville to Burton section, it’s actually really cost-effective in terms of delivery. My hope, when they do the rail review, is that if there is capacity in the budget, they will be looking at these schemes that can complete the programme.

“As a scheme that’s a little bit smaller in terms of rail infrastructure, when we are looking for those opportunities to fill up the programme, I would hope that if Ivanhoe isn’t at the top of the list, it will be really close.”

An extension to the contract for trains to use the line to serve Bardon Hill Quarry is seen by Hack as a boost to the case. CRIL campaigners argue that it also rules out light rail along the route as a cut-price alternative to their plans.

“The savings in light rail are achieved by the low cost of building the permanent way,” says CRIL’s Douglas McLay.

“Here, because the line is open to freight, the heavy rail has to be there to handle the freight.

“The other option would be to close it to freight traffic, which wouldn’t be easy to do because there are contracts to be fulfilled and a lot of it is aggregates, which would have to go by lorry. And that would make matters worse on the roads.”

For now, all those who thought they were on their way to restoring their railway can do is wait for the new government to firm up its spending plans.

Organisations which had made a strong case and have firm political support in the form of MPs (and in some cases regional mayors) are keeping their hopes alive. But until the spending review is over, they remain just hopes.

Back on the route of the Ivanhoe Line, they also have the support of one of the industry’s major players.

Siemens Mobility employs around 200 people at its site in Ashby. The company says it wants staff to be able to get to work by train, and has offered its expertise in signalling, telecoms and information systems to those wanting to get passenger trains running once more.

Siemens’ modular signalling was chosen for the reopened Northumberland Line. Nobody is more aware of the irony that while that has helped bring passenger services back to that corner of the North East, in the East Midlands the wait for passenger trains goes on.