Brunswick train station
A FOUR-YEAR ban has been quietly slapped on new local rail schemes, delivering a blow to campaigners hoping to reopen long-mothballed lines.
Groups would be required to fund any projects – including new stations or switching freight lines to passenger travel – for three years before the Government would step in to help.
The announcement, slipped out late at night by the Department for Transport (DfT), is the latest evidence of a severe spending squeeze on railways.
Just 100 new carriages will be delivered across the North, down from 224 promised before last year’s election. The Government derided Labour’s plans as “uncosted”.
Now the ban on local rail schemes could hit hoped-for projects including:
The Burscough Curves, a £2.5m scheme to revive the disused electric track between Ormskirk and Burscough, shut down in the 1960s;
The Halton Curve, from Frodsham to Runcorn, allowing access from Chester to JLA, which closed in the early 1990s. Merseytravel believes 1m passengers would use it;
