Restoring Pennine’s Missing Rail Link “Low-hanging Fruit”

Letter in Yorkshire Post, 21st March 2023

Dear Sir,

Your editorial (11 March) rightly welcomes the Government’s investment in Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), but decision makers up north and in Whitehall should also work together to address the needs of more isolated communities, away from the north’s main cities.Tax payers in long-neglected areas, such as East Lancashire, deserve access to decent public transport, just as much as their metropolitan neighbours.Costing a fraction of the cost of NPR and HS2, reopening the 12-mile Skipton-Colne Line is low-hanging fruit.

It would be a much-needed shot in the arm for some of the country’s most deprived boroughs, such as Burnley and Pendle, where car ownership rates are low.Even Dr Beeching in the 1960s recognised the line’s strategic importance, advocating its development.

The benefits of its restoration would quickly be felt across the north. Boosting East/West connectivity and brownfield housing development, it would provide life-changing access to work, education and leisure opportunities, and help ease road congestion, opening up rail travel to the Yorkshire Dales for thousands, for example.

Yours faithfully Nick Tennant,

Vice Chair, Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership