News Desk

Connecting Communities by Rail

20th July 2009


An insight into the way that ATOC has changed its ways may be gleaned from some of their more recent reports, which demonstrate they are trying to help the industry lead change rather than be a victim of it. Connecting Communities is one of this series and it is worth a read. Sadly, some of the highlights which have escaped into an undiscerning press may have allowed the impression to be formed that this is just another attempt to draw lines on maps. Not so, there’s more to it than that.

First, some context. Since 1995 some 27 new lines (totalling 199 miles) have been opened, together with 68 new stations. In addition, there are currently ten new rail projects in hand ready to deliver a further 88 route miles and a further 65 stations. This shows that when the will is there it is possible to address local needs by providing what is effectively new heavy rail infrastructure (even if many of the new lines are upgraded freight routes having had passenger services many years previously, but some track is actually reinstated and a few bits are new). Most new facilities have been successful inasmuch as they have not only addressed the demand thought offering but exceeded it. However the funding for these works is uncoordinated and still leaves parts of the country pretty much unserved by rail. The purpose of this report is to begin by looking at these unserved areas and seeing what can be done (given a local need).

The starting point is the observation that many places once served by rail have grown tremendously. They have grown so much that either absence of rail connection is creating a difficulty or unsuitable modes of transport are being used to get to railheads, often themselves not suited to this role and via roads that have become heavily congested. A slightly arbitrary trigger point of 15,000 population has been chosen, observing that in some areas growth is happening very rapidly.

Local authorities are required to produce regional special strategies in order to guide the planning processes towards meeting future demand for housing and various local services adequately. Unfortunately these strategies have not hitherto been well connected with developments within the rail industry, and even the rail Route Utilization Strategies are linked only loosely. Hence there is a need for something a little more systematic; so back to Connecting Communities.

The process was to study England’s demographic date using nine key criteria in order to identify areas, one criteria was being a community exceeding 15,000 and others related to existing rail connections, other transport facilities, and propensity to be likely to use rail were it there. This process triggered a review of 75 locations. From these it was established that it was simply not practicable to connect 20 of them to the rail network, while in another 20 cases communities were considered sufficiently close to a suitable station to make it hard to justify new links. This left 35 cases worthy of further study. Of these it was possible to identify suitable rail routes (generally using old alignments) and to adopt ball-park figures for reinstatement and subsequent usage, coupled with normal business case criteria for community benefits, traffic reduction, accident reduction and various other attributes. In all cases the team producing the report visited the sites concerned in order to satisfy itself about the practicality of the proposals, or not.

The outcome was to identify nine locations with an indicative benefit to cost ratio exceeding 1.5 (the standard government passmark), 19 which were marginal but probably deserved more detailed appraisal and seven which would probably fail under any conditions. Of the 14 which had a benefit to cost ratio exceeding one, nine were on existing (or recently closed) freight lines and five would use lines whose formations were largely intact. Two locations also served sites for proposed nearby eco-towns, a government initiative to build sustainable communities, though not so far an initiative that has got very far.

During the study, seven towns were identified which were thought likely to benefit from provision of new Park & Ride stations built on existing railways. These all had a benefit-cost ratio exceeding 1.5, with four of them having a ratio above four, making them attractive options to pursue.

In addition, routes for 16 other link lines were considered; as these did not specifically link unserved medium-sized towns they fell outside the scope of the report and will be considered at a later stage. They were thought worthy of note as they appeared practicable routes to reinstate in order to provide new journey opportunities, diversionary routes, freight routes and so on.

In terms of next steps ATOC thought that discussions should now begin with the various stakeholders and funders in order to engage them with the planning processes and embed the links into future planning proposals. Route options (not necessarily related to old rail formations) needed further consideration together with full engineering surveys and discussions about station locations and facilities required. Only then would detailed business case development be possible. New lines showing promise should also be incorporated into the Route Utilization Strategies so that network capacity issues were planned over the long term (though ATOC did not foresee immediate capacity issues arising). For rejuvenation of existing lines the development process could be quite quick, but where reinstatement was necessary then a Transport and Works Act Order (or its successor) would be needed, perhaps doubling development time.

Some words were cast about the need for safeguarding the schemes most likely to have a future and the observation was made that previous decisions about the ‘strategic infrastructure requirements’ of the rail network (in the context of the routes of disused rail lines) had been wrong, with some very useful alignments now permanently lost. Given the demographic changes over the last forty years, the report notes, we should be considering what might happen over the next 40 and not repeat mistakes. In much the same tone, the plea was made for making passive provision for reasonably probable new links when existing infrastructure was upgraded. This reduced the cost, time and disruption caused when a link was subsequently installed and could usually be done at nil to moderate cost, with a bit of thought.

ATOC urged getting the more promising proposals moving forward fairly quickly as they fed into other schemes and proposals and the lead times were long enough as it is. There was a clear need to get properly costed and evaluated schemes into the Route Utilization and local planning strategies so they could be delivered within a time window of between 2½ and 6 years.

The Links proposed are (in diminishing order of BCR):


BCR exceeding 2 (2)
Hythe (Hants)
Brixham

BCR exceeding 1.5 (7)
Bordon
Fleetwood
Rawtenstall
Aldridge
Brownhills (part)
Cranleigh
Ringwood

BCR exceeding 1 (5)
Washington
Leicester-Burton
Skelmersdale
Ashington and Blythe
Wisbech

BCR 1.0 or below (21)
Madeley
Stourport-on-Severn
Ripon
Norton Radstock (part)
Portishead
Witney
Annfield Plain (via Washington)
Biddulph
Spenneymoor
Dereham
Thornbury (part)
Leek/Stoke
Haverhill
Guisborough
Leek/Macclesfield
Bideford
Daventry
Ripley
Anston
Louth
Annfield Plain via East Coast main line

Station-only proposals identified for Park & Ride (in diminishing order of BCR):

Rushden (Bedford-Wellingborough)
Osset (Wakefield-Huddersfield)
Peterlee (Sunderland-Hartlepool)
Ilkeston (Nottingham-Chesterfield)
Wantage (Didcot-Swindon)
Clay Cross (Nottingham-Chesterfield)
Kenilworth (Leamington Spa-Coventry)