Restoring Your Railway Fund

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on securing this important debate. Representing Darlington, the birthplace of the railways, I have been pleased to have many opportunities to raise railway-related issues in my time in this place. This includes campaigning to save Locomotion No. 1, getting our railway bridges painted, pushing for tactile paving at Darlington Bank Top station, leading the case for an overhaul of North Road station, stopping London North Eastern Railway from cutting services and calling for livestreaming to British Transport Police of onboard CCTV.

Darlington has a rich rail heritage—indeed, it is the starting point of the world’s railway story. As we approach the bicentenary of the Stockton and Darlington railway in 2025, there could be no better time than now to be having this debate. As we have already heard, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Beeching cuts, which saw the decimation of many of our railway lines, the impact of which we still feel today with the loss of connectivity it brought about.

Levelling up is about righting the wrongs of the past and reversing underinvestment in regions such as the north-east, which has been overlooked by Governments of all colours. I am proud that the transformation of Darlington’s wonderful Bank Top station—a cathedral of Victorian railway engineering—backed with £139 million of Government investment, is adding additional platform capacity and connectivity to our regions. The restoring your railway fund is a further way that the Government are levelling up, helping to unlock connectivity and restore long-lost connections with communities, for which, even after the passage of so much time, people have a great affinity.

I and many other north-east colleagues also are pushing for the Leamside line to be restored, which will do so much to unlock capacity on the east coast main line. Darlington connects to the Bishop line, and in turn connects to the Weardale line. Working with colleagues, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) and for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), and primarily our hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), strategic overview case funding for the Durham Dales line has been secured. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has also secured business case funding for feasibility of the Consett to Tyne line.

These projects to restore our railway links can help to deliver public transport that is fit for purpose, getting people to where employment opportunities are and opening up communities that are currently disconnected to new investment opportunities. Further, the lines would serve some of the areas of the north-east with the lowest rates of car ownership, where there is heavy reliance on public transport. It is not right that people are further disadvantaged by matters outside their control. Reopening the lines would go a long way towards ending this disadvantage and help to boost the local economy.

Finally, I want to mention North Road station in my constituency, which sits on the Bishop line. The station, on the original Stockton to Darlington railway line, has a number of problems, including the platform height and depth, inappropriate furniture and fencing, and the shameful waste of the use of the historic canopy for shelter. I firmly believe that we can do better, and I am pleased to be working with Network Rail, Northern, the Bishop line, Darlington Borough Council and Tees Valley Combined Authority to secure solutions and funding for those issues. That sits alongside the £35 million investment in Darlington’s flagship Railway Heritage Quarter, which adjoins North Road station. The preservation and improvement of the station is a hugely important project and would complement the work already being undertaken to showcase Darlington’s rich rail heritage.

In the north-east, all rails lead to Darlington. The restoration of the lines I have mentioned would be hugely beneficial for improving local connections and boosting business, employment, education and leisure opportunities for my constituents and residents across the north-east, and I am grateful to have been able to put these points on the record.