Stoke-Leek Line: Reopening

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) on securing this debate. Members may think that, having pulled the graveyard slot, there would not be anything to add—quite frankly, I think we have named every village along the line, every tea room and every pub— but I do have a few things to say.

Reopening the Stoke-Leek line is a key need in a series of public transport projects that will level up opportunity for deprived communities across central Stoke-on-Trent. Like my colleagues today, I want to see the reopening of the stations that were lost when the line closed to passenger traffic in 1956. In the area of the old Bucknall and Northwood station, an interchange is possible with the existing bus routes westwards into Hanley for the city centre and eastwards to Bentilee, Townsend and the full length of Werrington Road.

In addition, I want to see a new station convenient for Abbey Hulton and Birches Head and their significant residential estates that were never served by the old line. Such a station could serve Birches Head Academy, Abbey Hulton medical centre, Abbey Hulton football club and the remains of Abbey Hulton itself. Getting the location right needs investigation and the Restoring Your Railway fund is an excellent means of exploring the necessary detail—so long as we win the bid. Reopening the Stoke-Leek line is entirely complementary to reopening Etruria station, too. If we are to reach a critical rail mass for Stoke-on-Trent, we need to win both bids and share commissioning efficiencies for the necessary research.

The current public transport journey time from Leek to Etruria would easily be halved from an hour-plus to perhaps as little as 25 minutes. In a city with chronic congestion and ministerial directions on air quality at both Etruria and Fenton, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) said, we simply cannot afford to leave the Stoke-Leek line mothballed. It needs to be open to passenger use.

A third of households are carless, buses struggle to be reliable in congestion, and our growing economy is being held back. Stoke-on-Trent is on the up, but the opportunities that brings must be accessible to many more communities across the city, including those who suffer from the urban splintering caused by what we know locally as the D road.

Reopening the Stoke-Leek line, along with Etruria, will create a U-shape around the city centre. The Transforming Cities fund is already establishing a fast corridor from Stoke station to the south of the city centre. Etruria would establish one from the west and a Stoke-Leek line station at Bucknall Park would establish one to the east. When we look at the map, the Stoke-Leek line joining the Stoke-Crewe line around the city centre looks strikingly like the wires around a bullseye on a dartboard.

Staffordshire University and Staffordshire sixth form college are both solid supporters of reopening the line for pupil and staff use. I know from the vice-chancellor that some university students had to drop out because of transport difficulties, which is an unnecessary tragedy, given that the university is pretty much right next to Stoke-on-Trent railway station. Given the increasing importance of the university and the apprenticeship training centre for local businesses, connectivity to the university quarter is vital to many more young people than the traditional academic student. I very much hope that Stoke College and the Goodwin engineering training school will also be more accessible to left-behind communities.

We struggle with the current inadequate public transport system. The Transforming Cities fund is a great start, but it cannot be the end. I do understand that there are some local concerns about noise from services and the loss of what might be seen as a green corridor—the walking route. But the line is a mothballed rail line, not a pedestrian link. It is so dangerous at Abbey Hulton that the bridge over Leek Road is completely fenced off. We are establishing a new green corridor through the city, with the rewilding of the River Trent, that is accessible to pedestrians, which we must continue to pursue. There is no alternative train or light rail route to Leek, but there are alternatives for better cycling and pedestrian routes.

For far too long, Stoke-on-Trent has had a public transport system in decline. It was not just Beeching; in fact, Etruria was closed by the last Labour Government. What we have now is a real chance to look properly at how to reverse that. It will level up life chances and make Stoke-on-Trent an even better place to live, visit, study and work.