Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, as part of improvements to trans-Pennine railway capacity and services, they are considering the reinstatement of the railway line between Colne and Skipton.

It is for Lancashire and North Yorkshire County Councils, working with their Rail North and Transport for the North partners, to decide whether to progress consideration of this reinstatement as part of the Northern Transport Strategy. This consideration will be informed by the results of a recent study commissioned for the local campaign group, SELRAP, supported by a number of local authority partners, on the conditional outputs in improved local and regional connectivity that any reinstatement should seek to address.

This Government has made significant funding available to Local Enterprise Partnerships and local authorities through both devolution and the growth deals. Over £2billion Local Growth Fund will be spent on local transport schemes in the North up to 2021. We expect that local areas in the North will continue to use these processes to promote their priority local transport schemes.