Stoke-Leek Line: Reopening

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Members are very welcome and are of course aware that the social distancing rules no longer apply. They are no longer in operation. Members attending physically should clean their spaces when they arrive and when they leave. I think that is all I have to announce. It gives me great pleasure to call Karen Bradley to move the motion.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered reopening the Stoke-Leek line.

Or, as I like to call it, the Leek-Stoke line.

This is a first for me. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I know you are an impeccable Chair and your timing is even more impeccable, so I am delighted to serve under you. I am not sure whether you have visited the Staffordshire Moorlands. It is very much like the constituency that you represent—a beautiful rural area. It has amazing scenery, lots of great dairy farms, which you will understand, and some great tourist attractions, although, unlike the Giant’s Causeway, we have Alton Towers.

Many people come to visit the Staffordshire Moorlands. They come to see our amazing scenery. The Roaches, for example, is a place that people travel to from all over the world to do rock climbing and just to observe the views; from there it is possible to see lots of different counties—I think I once counted 16 of them—and all the way to Snowdonia. We cannot quite see the Isle of Man or Northern Ireland, but we can see into Wales.

We have the Manifold Valley, the beautiful Thor’s Cave, and a bit of Dovedale, which is also one of the great tourist attractions. As well as Alton Towers, we have the Peak Wildlife Park and Biddulph Grange Garden—beautiful places that people come to visit. We have amazing hospitality venues such as the Lazy Trout in Meerbrook, the Yew Tree at Cauldon, the Stafford Arms at Bagnall, and the Auctioneers—a community-run pub in Caverswall that I helped the community to buy and is a fantastic place to visit. We have wonderful independent shops in all our towns and villages, but in Leek we are very proud of our “Totally Locally” campaign and our local markets. We have a heritage railway in the Churnet Valley railway. We have so much to offer.

The question one might ask when looking at the map and seeing those wonderful attractions is, “How on earth can I get there?” I am afraid to say that unless someone has a car it is a struggle. Last summer—we are seeing it again at the moment—the villages of the Staffordshire Moorlands were totally overwhelmed with traffic; we got to the point where emergency vehicles could not get through. Villagers felt like prisoners in their own homes because of the cars that were parked, and there is simply no other way to visit the Moorlands than by car.

We have a fantastic mainline station only a few miles away in Stoke-on-Trent; the same line runs on to Macclesfield, of course. The train from Euston to Stoke takes one hour and 24 minutes when we are not on a reduced timetable as we are at the moment. If I can make a plea to Avanti rail: we need two trains an hour to Stoke-on-Trent as soon as possible, because it really is not working at the moment with only one an hour.

We have some buses, but I am afraid they are an endangered species. They are very difficult to find. If someone does find a bus, they might be able to travel into the Moorlands, but it is not easy. If someone gets to Stoke train station with a view to visiting Alton Towers, which puts on special buses, or the Roaches, the Manifold Valley or any of the other great attractions, they find that the only way to get public transport is to walk about a mile and a half to Hanley where the bus station is—because, of course, the bus station is not in the same place as the train station in Stoke-on-Trent. That person would then have to wait for a bus that is usually hourly. Perhaps they might be lucky and the buses might be every half hour, but it is not easy and it takes a significant amount of time to get to the Staffordshire Moorlands.

Even if someone can get to Stoke-on-Trent station by taking a taxi or finding a very amenable friend to give them a lift, to get from the station to Leek—which is where I live: the centre of the constituency—they could drive along the main Leek road, which is the A52, the A5009 and the A53. To do so means travelling through the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) before reaching the Staffordshire Moorlands.

This route passes through some amazing parts of the city: Joiners Square, Abbey Hulton, Milton, then entering Stockton Brook and then on through Endon, Longsdon, and finally into Leek. The problem is that it is a single-lane carriageway. Actually, there is not a dual carriageway anywhere in the Staffordshire Moorlands constituency. One cannot legally go faster than 60 miles an hour, even though some motorcyclists believe otherwise. It is a genuinely beautiful route, which runs along a disused railway line. It is absolutely stunning, but it is a very slow road.

Alternatively, there is the A520, taking a route through the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) and then on to the Moorlands. That goes through Fenton and Longton, Weston Coyney and Meir, to Cellarhead, Wetley Rocks, Cheddleton, Leekbrook and then into Leek. All of these places are beautiful, ancient villages; they do not have capacity to make the road any wider. On visiting Wetley Rocks, one discovers it really is rocks, driving along the edge of the cliff, so there is nowhere to go to extend that road.

So I ask: what can we do? If you are lucky, Mr Paisley, you might find you could get off the train at Stoke and I would be waiting for you with my car, because I would be delighted to give you a lift to Leek—obviously socially distanced with appropriate facemasks and so on. If we were lucky, it could take about 30 minutes. However, I must say that I have driven from Stoke-on-Trent station back to my home in Leek, and it has taken over an hour and a half. During rush hour, those two A roads that are the main roads into Leek from the city are absolutely full. They happen, at the moment, to have an enormous number of roadworks on them as well, which does not help, but in normal times they are still absolutely full. There are some very difficult junctions on them, particularly the junction at Endon going up to Clay Lake and Brown Edge and on the A520. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South and I both know about the issues around the Advanced Proteins site and the fact that we have an awful lot of very heavy vehicles travelling along that road and turning into the plant, causing congestion.

It really is not an easy journey, and it is getting harder. Given the volume of traffic and the demand for journeys between the Moorlands and the city, I do not see that it is going to improve any time soon, and the fact is that the Moorlands is missing out on the advantages of being only a few miles from the west coast main line. It is missing out on the opportunities that the Government’s investment in Stoke-on-Trent as part of the levelling-up agenda is bringing to the area, because people simply cannot rely on being able to work or live in the Moorlands and commute to the city given that the commute is so unreliable. We really do need an alternative.

There are two alternatives, and the debate title gives us a clue about what one of them is. There is another one, however, and it is that we could use the canals. We have a fantastic canal system built by James Brindley for the purposes of Wedgwood, to bring the raw materials from the Moorlands into the city where the potteries were founded in Burslem—the mother of the potteries in my hon. Friend for Stoke-on-Trent North’s constituency —but also around the whole city.

There are still fantastic potteries in the city, but it was the canals that made that possible. I love being on the canal—it is a really wonderful day out—but I think we would agree that it is probably not a good alternative for commuting into the city, given the speed at which one could travel. That then leaves us with one remaining alternative: to reopen the railway line between Leek and Stoke-on-Trent that closed as a victim of the Beeching cuts. When it closed it was probably not very well used, but I know now that the demand is there, and that people want to get back to being able to commute into the city from the Staffordshire Moorlands. Not only do we not have a dual carriageway, but we do not have a mainline train line running through the constituency. It would be wonderful to bring these things back.

This could be a fantastic clean, green alternative to roads. Residents live very close to the road, with houses along the whole way. My hon. Friends from the city will describe the experiences of their constituents who live alongside those roads, and the pollution and noise they suffer. We have this alternative; the line is there. Only a couple of weeks ago, the four of us here—myself and my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central, for Stoke-on-Trent North and for Stoke-on-Trent South—together with the leader of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, Councillor Sybil Ralphs MBE, visited where the line travels between the Moorlands and the city at Stockton Brook. The line and track bed are there and we stood on them. There is quite a lot of weed but the line is there; it can be reopened. We were pleased to be there and see for ourselves that that could be done.

A bid has gone in to the Restoring Your Railways Fund. The bid is led by Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and Councillor Sybil Ralphs, and is supported by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, and its leader Councillor Abi Brown. We have the support of the local enterprise partnership, Staffordshire County Council, North Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce, the Peak District national park, local businesses and the key partner, the Churnet Valley railway. As I mentioned earlier, we have this wonderful heritage railway in the Moorlands, which has kept the track going for pleasure visits around the Moorlands on its steam trains. That heritage railway, with its use of the line, is a really important part of the bid.

I know the Minister is stepping in for my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who has sent his apologies. It is wonderful, though, to see the Minister in her place. I am hoping she will say that she will put personal endeavour into pushing this bid through. The bid has been submitted and we want to ensure that we get the funding we need, so that we can explore the possibilities.

We can see what could be achieved. We can see what the opportunities are for passenger services. That might be light rail; it might be different from what was envisaged when people closed the line—what it looked like then and what it might look like today. We want to see what the possibilities are for freight on the line, but we need to have that time and the expertise of officials at the Department for Transport to work with, to explore what is possible.

The line could not only go to Leek, but the line that the heritage railway uses now—to Froghall, through Cheddleton and Consall—could be used. That line goes to the village of Alton, where Alton Towers is. We have one of the largest cement plants in the UK at Cauldon, which is also the line used by the heritage railway. There are real opportunities to get freight off the road and on to the railway line.

In conclusion, I say to the Minister that all we want is a chance to see what is possible. I know she will use her best endeavours to support us on this. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friends, who are all fully behind this bid.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I thank Karen Bradley for moving that motion and painting such a pretty picture postcard and advertisement for the Staffordshire Moorlands. She probably won the record for name-checking every single village in a constituency. If Members wish to remove their jackets, please feel free to do so because it is stifling in this room today.

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[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (Maggie Throup)]

To begin, I would like to pass on the apologies of the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who had planned to attend this debate. He is self-isolating after being pinged by the NHS Test and Trace app and asked me to stand in. I am delighted to have been asked to respond, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) on securing this debate on the proposals for reopening the Stoke-Leek line—or, as she said, the Leek-Stoke line. I thank all Members who contributed. My right hon. Friend is a committed advocate of this scheme, alongside my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon), who have spoken passionately with one voice in today’s debate. Their collective campaigning to reinstate the Stoke-Leek line is second to none. I am sure the description that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands gave of her constituency will definitely have put it at the top of the tourist map for those who are listening to the debate. I also pay tribute to all right hon. and hon. Members who have sponsored applications to restore rail lines and stations in their own constituencies. I know just how much these schemes mean for local communities. Those Members are great advocates for the restoration of their railways.

This Government are committed to levelling up the country, and a strong, effective railway is central to that ambition. As part of that levelling-up agenda, in January 2020 the Government pledged £500 million for the Restoring Your Railways programme to deliver on our manifesto commitment to start reopening lines and stations. This investment will reconnect smaller communities, regenerate local economies and improve access to jobs, homes and education. The Beeching report led to the closure of one third of our railway network—2,363 stations and 5,000 miles of track were identified for closure. Many places that lost their railway connection have simply never recovered. For the towns and villages left isolated and forgotten by the Beeching cuts, restoring a railway line or station has the potential to revitalise the community. It breathes new life into our high streets, drives investment in businesses and housing and opens new opportunities for work and education. Ilkeston station, in my constituency, which reopened in 2017 after more than 50 years of closure, is a proven example of this positive impact.

[Karen Bradley]

I am very much enjoying what the Minister has to say. I add my congratulations on the reopening of Ilkeston station, which I remember her predecessor, the great Jessica Lee, campaigned so hard for.

[Maggie Throup]

It was a long-fought battle, like that which my right hon. and hon. Friends in the room are fighting.

More broadly, investing in transport links is essential to levelling up access to opportunities across the whole country, ensuring that our regions are better connected, local economies flourish and more than half a century of isolation is undone. By building back with a real focus on better connections and supporting left-behind communities, we are delivering our promise to level up this country, as set out last week by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

The Restoring Your Railways Fund has three parts, with part of the £500 million fund allocated to the ideas fund. Aimed at early-stage proposals, the ideas fund is helping communities to develop ideas to restore railway lines and stations across England and Wales. These proposals are led by the affected communities, supported by their local Member or Members of this House, giving them an opportunity to make the case for how the railway can transform their area. The Department is funding 75% of the study costs of successful proposals, up to a maximum of £50,000. Over the first two rounds of the ideas fund, 25 promising schemes across England and Wales have been awarded up to £50,000 in development funding to help them get to the strategic outline business case stage.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands has taken advantage of this opportunity and submitted a proposal to restore rail services between Stoke and Leek—or between Leek and Stoke—to the first round of the ideas fund in spring 2020. While the bid had the potential to deliver benefits, it was not successful at that time, and the rail Minister wrote to the right hon. and hon. Members who sponsored the bid to inform them of the outcome. Feedback on the bid was provided at the same time, setting out why it had not quite made it in that round of funding and what could be done to further strengthen the proposals. I know that the rail Minister was therefore pleased that earlier this year—I think it was on 5 March, the deadline for applications for the third and final round of the fund—one of the more than 85 bids that the Department for Transport received was a revised proposal for the Stoke-Leek line.

As my right hon. Friend explained, the proposal details the many benefits that restoring the Stoke-Leek line would bring to the area—she was so graphic earlier about all the benefits—including providing residents of Leek with direct access to education and employment opportunities in Stoke-on-Trent and the opening up of Staffordshire Moorlands to the tourist trade. The assessment process for those bids is currently under way. The Department expects to announce outcomes over the summer. Decisions on bids are made by an expert panel, which the rail Minister chairs. It is informed by analysis from the Department for Transport, technical advisers and Network Rail. The standard of the applications is, as ever, very high.

In nearby Meir, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South, a proposal to reopen the railway station has already been successful in the ideas fund. This scheme used the funding awarded to create a strategic outline business case, which the Department will be considering soon. If delivered, the scheme would reconnect the people of Meir to the rail network for the first time since 1966, giving them access to new educational and economic opportunities, making new housing developments in certain areas viable and levelling up a region that suffers from poor productivity relative to the rest of the UK.

Advance proposals for the second part of the £500 million Restoring Your Railways Fund are being used to accelerate the development of closed lines and stations that are already being considered for restoration and have existing business cases. As a result, certain reopened railways will be connecting commuters again very soon, with regular passenger services set to be restored for the first time in almost 50 years by the end of 2021. The third strand of the Restoring Your Railways funding has been used to provide £32 million for a third round of the new stations fund, which is funding six new stations and providing development funding for a further two stations.

This country has a rich railway history, which puts it on the world stage, with its Victorian pioneers, its commitment to innovation and its engineering achievements. Thanks to record levels of funding, which will help us to build back better as we recover from the pandemic, we will also deliver the biggest modernisation programme to the railways for more than a century.

Of course, new rail lines are not the only way to reconnect our communities. Last week, the Prime Minister announced a £4.2 billion city region sustainable transport fund, which local leaders can spend on projects, such as new tram lines or bike lanes. The west midlands will receive a share of this fund, providing further opportunity for the constituents of my right hon. and hon. Friends to benefit from improved transport infrastructure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karen Bradley]

I have really enjoyed this debate, and it has been good to hear from all the Members who would be affected positively by the reopening of the Stoke-Leek or Leek-Stoke line. I am grateful to the Minister for her words and for the support from the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi).

Mr Paisley, you suggested that I had mentioned every village in my constituency. This is only an hour-long debate, and therefore I have not been able to mention them all, but they are all very important to me and they could all benefit from the Stoke-Leek line.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) referred to some people who were worried about the reopening. I understand that some people who live along the line are concerned that there will be an adverse impact on them. That is why it is important that the funding is provided so that we can explore the implications and look at what can be done to reassure those people who are concerned, as well as helping those who are really enthusiastic.

I assure my hon. Friend the Minister that many, many people are very enthusiastic. In fact, when we had our photo opportunity in the drizzle in Stockton Brook a few weeks ago, a couple were walking their dog down the side of the canal, where the canal and the railway line up next to one another. They stopped and said, “Wow, are you looking to reopen this? I remember this line when I was a boy. I can’t tell you how exciting it would be to see this line reopen and see trains back along this line.”

It is important to note that the plan is part of a wider project. It is not just another project to be seen in isolation; it is part of all the work being done to transform the whole of north Staffordshire, including the stations at Meir and Etruria, which we all want to reopen.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) spoke about day visitors. He is absolutely right: we suffer in that we have an enormous number of visitors, but they are day visitors. They do not come to stay overnight; they drive in and then drive out again. We have some fantastic places for them to stay. I put on the record that only last week, I visited the Tawny Hotel in Consall, a brand-new hotel next to the heritage railway line of Churnet valley. It is another fantastic place for people who want to visit and stay in the Staffordshire Moorlands and north Staffordshire.

The reopening could bring so many opportunities. Around the whole of north Staffordshire, the vision that the reopening of the line would be a part of is tangible, and it would be such an exciting thing to see. The Minister said that this country has a rich railway history. I want it to have a rich railway future, and I want the Stoke-Leek line to be very much part of that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered reopening the Stoke-Leek line.