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Train line reopens after 40 years. Lessons for Burscough Curves?
By Steve Hanlon | May 28, 2008
News from last week about train line reopening after 40 years in Scotland. Reminded me of the Burscough Curves which must be around their 40th anniversary of being closed. Like the Ormskirk bypass the local papers flip-flop between optimism and pessimism about the future of the project; and just at the moment there seems to be a feeling that neither will happen soon.
This week’s Champ reports that a transport minister said that the curves will only happen when a private company stumps up the cash, which sounds like a death-knell to me (or a continue-to-be-dead knell). A brief read through the Scottish Transport Agency’s site about the Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine railway suggests that it is public money that paid for the project.
It might be that John Pugh has the business plan tucked away somewhere to convince one of the rail companies to reopen the curves, but I doubt it. Unless this project is supported by central government, then it won’t happen. And ultimately that means all the local MP’s pushing for it.
At a time when there’s no end in sight of the petrol price rises, the key investment has to be in local public transport. Arguably, the investment should be put in when the economy is going well, but that’s a different subject. If it’s a straight choice between more trains and buses locally or, say, more roads, then surely we should be putting the money into public transport.
Topics: West Lancs |
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:42 am
Here’s another one - in South Wales - which shows it can be done: http://www.blaenau-gwent.gov.uk/ebbwvalleyrailway/
I did some of the early socio-economic impact assessment stuff on this, as long ago as 1999/2000 - it took another 4 or 5 years to get the funding package together - and I remember that the cost-benefit analysis ’stacked up’ even then. I wasn;’t cheap, but it stood to bring a whole new economy to a valley that had been denuded of employment (and that was before Corus closed in 2002).
Though I’ve not had any involvement since then I was really pleased to see it open. In fact, I seem to remember when i was working on it that it was just going to go to Newport, so it’s even better to see it linked to Cardiff now. I must go down and have a look.
It’s interesting to see the long term commitment to what was a difficult scheme to fund shown by the Wesh assembly and the local authorities, and then compare it to the comments from West Lancs District Council in the Exec Overview and Scrutiny Committee papers about the potential for a rail link to Skelmersdale. Basically the view expressed is that it’s not worth holding back land for a station because it’s not likely to happen any time soon! I have to say that this seems both overly pessimistic and shortsighted, especially when links from North and south are specifically indicated in Merseytravel’s strategic plan - see http://www.letstravelwise.org/uploads/documents/mar_07/trav_1174051447_Appendix_02_(Final_Mar_07).pdf
After all, it took 9-10 years to get the Ebbw Vale-Cardiff link sorted, so surely the possibility of a link into Skem in that kind of timescale can’t be discounted
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
[...] Steve Hanlon has usefully pointed to a recent story about the renewal of a rail link in Scotland after a 40 year closure, and suggested it should give encouragement to those supporting the renewal of the Burscough curves, which would once again create a direct connection between Ormskirk and Southport amongst other benefits. [...]