'Reverse Beeching' rail plan for Kettering and Corby hits buffers
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A bid to reverse the Beeching cuts of the 1960s and create an east-west rail link from Kettering and Corby to Stamford and Peterborough has failed to to garner support from the Department for Transport.
The Welland Valley 'Beeching Reverse' rail link would have started at Kettering before calling at Corby, a new local station at Luffenham in Rutland, Stamford, Peterborough, Whittlesey, March with a new station being built at Wisbech.
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Hide AdChampioning the new rail link was The Welland Valley Railway Development Community Interest Company (WVR) who submitted a bid to the Department for Transport's (DfT) Restoring Your Railway Ideas Fund in December 2020.
The plan was designed to reconnect stations using existing infrastructure with only three-and-a-half miles of new track needing to be laid between Seaton and Luffenham in Rutland.
But a bid for funding for a feasibility study has been declined by the DfT.
Owen O'Neill, chief technical officer of the Welland Valley Rail partnership, said: "We are disappointed and saddened to hear that our bid for feasibility study funding has not been successful.
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Hide Ad"We thought it would a super opportunity to improve public transport, given we had managed to gain support from all the local authorities and MPs who were all behind it.
"There are no more bidding rounds of the ‘Restoring Your Railway’ programme planned, so Welland Valley Rail will study the feedback and hope to work together with local authority partners to see if there are alternative routes to progress the project.
"The merits of the case for restoring lost connections in the Welland Valley area still stand, namely increased connectivity and shortened journey times.
"The project would greatly improve east-west transport across the region, between Kettering, Corby, Stamford, Peterborough and towards Wisbech, particularly for the many people who do not have access to a car."
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Hide AdIn its feedback the DfT recognised that 'the proposal demonstrates credible transport benefits and will connect major towns/cities that are not connected by rail', had a large amount of support from local authorities, and could provide benefits to levelling up, but that the Dft would have liked to see further technical and commercial detail in the bid document.
Mr O'Neill added: "We will not be able to take this project forward - we are only a volunteer organisation so it's down to the local authorities now."