Railways: Heritage Sector

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I, too, express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for providing us with this very useful debate today. I declare an interest as one of the numerous vice-patrons of the Bluebell Railway, which is endeavouring to raise funds in its 50th jubilee year. I believe that I have one or two colleagues in the House who are also vice-patrons.

Like the noble Lord, I think that heritage railways, particularly the Bluebell Railway on which I shall speak, epitomise all that one looks for in the big society as it is currently described. Last year, for example, the Bluebell was granted the prestigious Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. While it has a calibre of full-time employees, its mainstay is volunteers. Nearly 600 of them keep the organisation running and have done so for more than 50 years. Last year, the Bluebell line carried 187,000 passengers, including my noble friend. It is a good employer, a great tourist attraction and a great educator, not just for Sussex, where I reside, but also for the UK; people come from overseas to visit our steam trains. It had a turnover last year of more than £3 million. In addition to that, as others have described, there is a wider benefit to the local communities as people come in to see the railway.

As well as providing full-time employment for staff, it currently offers more than 40 full-time apprenticeships in its carriage, wagon and locomotive works, which are not only maintaining the old skills that are required but, with the use of technology, moving into new areas and developing new engineering skills.

The trust has very ambitious plans for growth. Of particular importance, it is now working on a northern line extension project that will link into East Grinstead and the national rail network. That gives the opportunity to talk about some of the issues which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned.

There is a final obstacle to be overcome: the removal of thousands of tonnes of household waste that were tipped into the Imberhorne cutting on the outskirts of East Grinstead. The work is costing well over £2 million. There is urgency to the task, as our exemption from land tax charges unfortunately expires on 31 March 2012. If the waste is not moved by then, we will face very high costs arising from the landfill tax. After April 2012, the costs will triple, with an extra £64 for each tonne taken out. Indeed, if it is not cleared before 2014, the cost will go up to £80 per tonne, which is an extra cost on top of the expenditure that I have just described. These costs are being driven by government changes to the landfill tax.

The Bluebell Railway is a charity and many of our volunteers are having a problem with the cost of providing fuel for their cars, which affects the numbers who turn up. We are also having problems with the local authorities, which are suffering expenditure cuts, and that is also a concern for us. We are therefore looking for donors.

As the train is ahead of schedule, I shall take an extra minute to make an appeal for donors, in the hope that people will be prepared to put themselves forward. In terms of the big society, we are looking to individuals and groups, but I also make an appeal to bigger organisations. The Bluebell Railway line will end at East Grinstead, adjacent to a big Sainsbury’s store. Sainsbury’s will gain considerable benefit from having this heritage railway running alongside its store. As we have not been able to persuade a large company to make a very helpful donation towards what we are endeavouring to do, perhaps I may appeal to the noble Earl. In spite of all the problems that he has, perhaps he could have a helpful word in the right quarters with some of the bigger organisations around East Grinstead, which so far have not pulled as much weight as we would have wished, and that might help in getting the rest of that household waste out of the cutting. I look forward with great interest to a response on that.