‘Dismayed’ East Midlands leaders ask for government’s rail vision after Midland Main Line decision

Leaders of councils in the East Midlands has asked what the government’s vision for rail in the region is as they express their “dismay” at the decision to pause further electrification of the Midland Main Line.

The leaders of Lincolnshire County Council (Sean Matthews) and Chesterfield Borough Council (Tricia Gilby) and the Mayor of Leicester and Chair of Transport for East Midlands (Peter Soulsby) have become the latest to write to the government about the decision.

After the government confirmed that no more wires will be going up north of Wigston, their letter to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said it was “the latest in a long line of delays and cancellations to a project that has so far taken 44 years to extend from London to just south of Leicester”.

“Halting the project now appears to make little sense in terms of the government’s objectives for the Spending Review,” they wrote.

“It is a ‘shovel-ready’ project that could have been largely delivered within this Parliament, it supports highly skilled jobs in the strategically important but vulnerable rail supply chain sector and contributes to the Government’s core missions of growth and decarbonisation.”

They also pointed to “significant consequences”, adding that councils have “spent time and money working with Network Rail to demolish and rebuild road bridges along the route for now no obvious purpose”.

Signing off the letter, they asked that if electrification does not proceed within the current Parliament, “what is the government’s vision for the future of rail in the East Midlands?”.

Their letter follows a joint letter by the Railway Industry Association and Rail Forum to Rail Minister Lord Hendy, which said the decision was a missed opportunity for growth, delayed the benefits of electrification and urged the government to reconsider.

Speaking at the Transport Select Committee on July 16, Hendy said tough decisions had to be made.

““We’ve had to balance every decision against the needs of the passengers and the reason why the MML further electrification went down the list was because the new trains that are going to be running on it are bi-mode will provide better service and more capacity,” he said.