The 12-mile rail line between Skipton and Colne was closed in 1970, a late casualty of the Beeching Axe, despite the fact that it was not originally scheduled to close in the Beeching Report of 1963. What had been an important inter-regional line between West Yorkshire and Central Lancashire was reduced to a neglected and underperforming single track branch railway between Burnley and Colne. As most transport economists understand, cul-de-sac railways rarely make sense operationally or financially.
The case for reopening the Skipton-Colne rail line
For over 20 years a dedicated group of local politicians, environmental and transport campaigners known as the South East Lancashire Rail Partnership (SELRAP), has sought to have the line reopened. Reports have been published, engineering studies commissioned, and impressive technical data collated to provide a carefully costed project which has now gained enough political momentum to attract support from leading politicians, including all local MPs and, crucially, the metro mayors of West Yorkshire and York & North Yorkshire.
Reopening of the line is now seen as a major test of the Government’s commitment to devolution. Campaigners point to the strategic importance of creating what would be a vitally needed additional Trans-Pennine route, linking the busy electrified commuter Airedale lines from Skipton to Leeds and Bradford with Central and East Lancashire conurbations. It would also have value as a freight route, with one major rail customer, Drax, already indicating the potential value of the restored line to their major bio-energy business by shortening journey times and costs between Liverpool and Hull.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has identified economic growth, employment and house building as her highest priorities. As SELRAP point out, these are exactly what the reopened railway would achieve:
· Employment in the region
The main benefit would be to the local economy. The former cotton towns of East Lancashire are among the poorest in England, with Burnley and Hyndburn among the 10% most economically deprived towns in the UK. Pendle Borough, in which both Nelson and Colne lie, has the highest child deprivation index in England.
The reopened railway would give the workforce, especially the young people of East Lancashire, access to a wide variety of white and blue-collar jobs. Skipton Building Society with 1,600 employees, many living in Colne and Nelson, is the largest single employer in North Yorkshire and a stronger supporter of the reopening proposal.
· Improved education opportunities for young people
The line would allow young people on both sides of the Pennine divide to access Universities in Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Bolton, Salford and Preston, but also vital further education and vocational skill training facilities in Skipton, Keighley, Burnley, Nelson, Accrington and Blackburn.
· The visitor economy
Tourism is a major North Yorkshire industry and Skipton is both a heritage market town and key gateway to the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Pendle Hill near Nelson is part of Bowland National Landscape. Existing and new linking bus services from both stations will open up huge new access opportunities from nearby towns and cities. Studies show that access to green space, especially wilder countryside, provides massive physical and mental health benefits.
· Yorkshire house prices
House prices in Nelson are less than 50% of those in Skipton. Many people who work in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and environs in hospitality or care industries, or even for local authorities, cannot afford to live in these areas. Fast, frequent train services could enable people to rent or buy property in areas such as Nelson or Colne.
It is estimated there are up to 12,000 empty and vacant properties in East Lancashire, often well-built former millworkers’ homes which could be renovated and restored for a fraction of the cost of newbuild. There is also ample land of poor agricultural value where new social housing could be provided if decent transport networks existed to access jobs and education.
The northern inequality challenge
Independent engineering consultants have confirmed that most of the old trackbed remains intact, if in need of rebuilding. SELRAP have costed this out at £298mn. A considerable sum, yet in the context of some estimates of the cost of HS2 just to Birmingham reaching £66bn, reopening the railway from Skipton to Colne offers very much better value.
But it is in the north of England. Had this rail line been in devolved Scotland or Wales, it would have been reopened a decade ago.
Too often rail investment in England is only justified by Department for Transport and the Treasury in London terms. The Elizabeth Line, Cross Rail 2, HS2 are justified by mega passenger flows. It is easy to justify rail investment in London because of its self-perpetuating economic success. It is a numbers game biased towards such areas, and not towards social or economic human need in the regions.
A youngster living in Colne or Nelson wanting to go to Leeds or Bradford University, or for a job in Skipton at Skipton Building Society, has exactly the same need for a fast, frequent train service as a kid in Ealing or Woking.
By allowing public local transport services in East Lancashire and North Yorkshire to deteriorate to well below Victorian levels, you not only deny that child opportunity, but you fuel outmigration of those same young people to the overheated Southeast, leaving those declining towns of the North in yet further decline.
The only way we are ever going to break this vicious spiral of doom – and Colne-Skipton is the perfect test case – is through regional devolution, when decision making and budgets available for key infrastructure projects are transferred from an over-centralised and largely self-serving central bureaucracy to the people of the English regions.
Rebuilding the Skipton-Colne line: a catalyst for northern economic revival
SELRAP is 100% correct in seeing Skipton-Colne regeneration as perhaps the most important economic development opportunity for several currently deprived parts of the North West and Yorkshire regions, including towns such as Keighley and the Aire Valley corridor within Bradford Metropolitan District. The reopening would benefit the economies of both regions.
The actual rebuilding of the line will also benefit the wider regional economy. Skilled workers – surveyors, civil and mechanical engineers, electricians, fitters, bricklayers, accountants, construction workers – will all require training, transport, accommodation and supplies, creating a powerful economic multiplier effect as every pound of public money or private investment rattles its way through tills, pockets, purses and bank accounts, thereby growing the local economy. This is something that by far the greatest economist of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes, fully understood.
At the moment, most of such major infrastructure work is concentrated in the already overheated south-east – not the north. But if the Yorkshire mayors and the proposed new Lancashire authority combine their voices, this will surely force central government to accept this as priority infrastructure investment for the north, to give some of the most deprived communities of the two regions a vital economic boost.
Crucial to the plan will be the government’s proposals for strengthening the powers of regional mayors to give them control over local rail networks, with single settlement financial arrangements over a range of priorities. But £300mn would still have to come from Treasury sources as metro budgets are unlikely to be more than a fraction of this amount.
What better project for a Labour government urgently needing to restore its credibility in its working-class heartlands?
