The Skipton and East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership (SELRAP) has expressed its disappointment that in her Spending Review announced to the House of Commons yesterday, Wednesday, 11th June, Chancellor Rachel Reeves completely ignored the urgent need for investment in modern and sustainable public transport infrastructure for East Lancashire.
As the Member of Parliament for Leeds West and Pudsey, Rachel Reeves is aware of the severe poverty in nearby East Lancashire, and its three constituencies of Pendle, Burnley and Accrington are the poorest and most marginalised city-sized communities in the United Kingdom.
This is despite a recent protest vote from local voters and her pledge to deal with regions suffering poverty and deprivation, and is also aware of the success of the Airedale Rail Line that serves her parliamentary constituency.
SELRAP contends that the Chancellor knows that many marginalised and deprived communities in East Lancashire would be reconnected if an investment was made in the Skipton to Colne “Missing Link” project to extend the existing Airedale line by just 12 miles.
This would be a low-cost and low-risk investment in rail infrastructure that would provide a population of approximately a quarter-of-a-million people a transformational change, with connectivity to better employment, education, and housing.
Each of the long-marginalised and long-forgotten “Red Wall” communities in the area would benefit from the many socio-economic benefits arising from the project.
Rail minister Lord Hendy says “the scheme presents a strong strategic case,” which is reinforced when it is revealed that in 2024, Skipton station was 10% busier than Heathrow’s Terminal Four, which is the terminus of £20 billion Elizabeth line in London.
Accrington, Burnley, and Pendle, with a combined population of over a quarter of a million people, would all be served by the new line; journey times to Leeds and Bradford would reduce to about an hour.
A sound business case for the project already developed by Network Rail and the Department for Transport suggests a cost of £430 million, approximately 1% of the planned expenditure for Northern Powerhouse Rail.
Similar disappointment was expressed after last year’s Conservative budget, despite its election manifesto commitment for Levelling Up in Accrington in the heart of East Lancashire.
Responses
Same for Burscough curves
Yeap
There is a real problem with the Colne to Skipton reinstatement (I know it was not closed by Beeching but due to a new dual carriage way and motorway from Rossendale to Manchester severing the line used by trains travelling from Skipton to Manchester) and this is it would never deliver enough ridership to justify the amount of civil engineering just to get out of Colne.
The promise of cutting the time taken from Burnley to Bradford and Leeds to an hour is already met by trains from Burnley, so there is route duplication, which is not a brilliant business model. There would be a need to change trains at Skipton for onward travel unless the line from Skipton to Preston was Electrified, add more cost to the line reopening.
After looking into the reopening of the Clitheroe to Hellifield Line I discovered that all that would be need is a limit of shunt on the up platform at Hellifield, and one extra train set, this makes this route one of the cheapest line reopening’s in the UK, and has a route catchment area of over 3 million, yet no one want to do this simple reopening.
The line from Clitheroe to Hellifield is maintained to mainline standards and the majority of passengers carried on the line is done using steam power in 2025.
But travelling from Blackburn to Skipton via Clitheroe and Hellifield passes through none of Hyndburn, Burnley or Pendle and therefore does not serve the 250,000 residents of those areas -this being the whole point of the article.
A better use of an extended Clitheroe route would be to increase the number of services to Ribblehead and beyond. Passengers in the Ribble Valley heading for Skipton would change at Ribblehead whilst those in Blackburn would choose the faster route via Colne. Those in Hyndburn, Burnley and Pendle heading to Ribblehead would change at Skipton. However, I suggest that the preponderance of travellers on the East Lancs line would be intra-regional between East Lancs and Preston, between East Lancs and Skipton and possibly between Skipton and Manchester. None of these are served effectively (or at all) via Hellifield.
The Blackburn to Hellifield should have been reopened fully when the Settle to Carlisle Line was saved as at the time British Railways/Railtrack was instructed by the government of the day to do so, so there is a legal mandate.
This is probably why the line is maintained to full main line standards and why it’s the cheapest (it just needs a limit of shunt sign, and one extra DMU with crew) to reopen in the UK.
Historically normal local passenger trains from Blackburn that where used on this line terminated in the bay platform and made connections with trains from Leeds to Morcombe and Carlisle, this bay is now out of use and so a new service would have to terminate at the down platform then using the crossover just south of the signal box reverse back to the platform on the up line (hence the need for a sign).
This movement would not cause any problems with the the current timetabling of trains from Leeds to Morcombe and Carlisle as the current timings from Clitheroe puts through trains to Hellifield in-between these trains.
If you tried to run services from Blackburn passed Hellifield you start to mess up the timetabling of trains from Leeds to Morcombe and Carlisle.
So this cheap option has never gone ahead despite Central Government instructing so 30 years ago, so do your really thing that Colne to Skipton stands a chance?
The old track bed from coming out from Colne runs into problems with the A56, which is the main route through Colne which will require a underpass of fly over to accommodate the railway and the building of it will cause major problems.
Then going out north the track bed is mainly clear from obstructions, although bridges will have to be built to allow access to private properties.
Problems start to appear around Sough, where householders have built sheds and greenhouses along the track bed and a new track there would be noisy.
Then when you get to Earby you hit problems at the northern end and a new level crossing would be need to be built, but as these are now been considered as undesirable so a loop north of Earby starting back at Kelbrook would have to be built and would move the proposed Craven Station away from Earby.
A few farm buildings need to be demolished as some have been built over the track bed.
Then you get to the River Ayr, and as the there is now a bypass built over the original route the line would have to loop north on the flood plain to allow for a junction with the line from Hellifield.
There is a problem with just running the trains through to Skipton and that is you would have to change trains and board the next train to Bradford or Leeds, which would add time if coming from say Burnley (which one would be quicker) as from Skipton south is electric and would make for a very strong case to electrify the East Lancashire Line from Preston, this bumps the cost upto £600 million, there is also little options for extending trains past Leeds as the Eastern throat of Leeds Station already struggles to cope being just two tracks.
An old school friend of mine was spotted alone the route and we got talking and he was in the middle of doing a early survey of the proposed route (this is where the northern loops come in) and said that yes it was possible to reopen the line at a cost, but the most damming problem was that the proposed route reopening would not generate enough income from current commuter journeys, as from a study they found that yes there is a lot of traffic coming off the end of the M65 and going onto the A56, but very little goes to Skipton or Keighley as most dissipates into Colne and local villages.
The build it and they with come would turn out to be build it and they may come.
Skipton and Manchester aren’t served effectively (or at all) via Hellifield.
MMM if the line from Clitheroe to Hellifield was fully operational then it would be a train north out of Skipton to Hellifield and then a Train to straight through to Manchester.