Weardale Railway

Paul Howell Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) said, I worked for a number of years up at Eastgate at what was the thriving cement works industry. Unfortunately, that was lost as part of the squeeze between Scotland and the midlands. Part of the reason for that was probably the economics of getting trucks of cement out of that valley—it did not help that there was not a railway line.

The Minister will be surprised to see me talking about anything other than the Ferryhill railway station bid, on which I wholeheartedly support our progress. As he knows, a feasibility study has progressed on that. There are many parallels between the necessity of that bid and this one. They would both connect communities, ensuring that people can reach the centres of employment and that those centres can reach back into the countryside and leisure activities that go with that.

Having worked in Weardale, I can say that it is not a flat part of the world, and we do have weather up there, so any additional contributions from rail—as opposed to road—to get down to the metropolis of Darlington, as it is called, would be welcome at certain times of the year. The Weardale line connects to the Bishop line, which is the connection into Darlington. That will be severed when the big works are done at Darlington station to improve the economics of that argument. I am really pleased to see both feasibility studies happening.

That section of the Bishop line is part of the old Stockton to Darlington line. That is where things started back on 27 September 1825—before me, even—when the locomotion engine was reassembled and steamed prior to the opening of the railway on the Aycliffe levels in the Sedgefield constituency at Newton Aycliffe. The whole thrust of the 2025 celebrations come from that. At that site is a pub called, of all things, Locomotion No. 1, although sadly it is decrepit and in real need of repair and rebuilding. I hope that as part of the reimagining of the line and these connections, we can rebuild with reference to places such as the Locomotion No. 1 pub, with their historical significance. I will touch briefly on Ferryhill again and the connection to Newton Aycliffe, which had the munitions factory. Munitions in the war drove Ferryhill station, which was at that time the busiest station in Europe—bizarre, but it was. I would like to see that reconnection to history and the reconnection of our communities. It is why I am here to support our efforts with the Darlington to Dales railway line.