Labour refuses to commit to Leamside

Labour has refused to commit to reopening the mothballed Leamside train line, on the day that the party unveiled a pledge to “fix Britain’s broken railways,” writes Daniel Holland, Local Democracy Reporter.

Sir Keir Starmer and shadow transport secretary Lou Haigh were in the North East today (Thursday, 25 April) promoting plans to bring the nation’s passenger railway services under public control within five years.

But absent from the party’s announcement was the detail of any major infrastructure investments to open new routes and return train services to areas left without any for decades.

Top of North East leaders’ wishlist has long been a restoration of the disused Leamside Line, which runs from Pelaw in Gateshead to Tursdale in County Durham, a project that is expected would cost well over £1 billion.

Indeed, just last week, Gateshead Council Leader, Cllr Martin Gannon, claimed delays on changes to the timetable on the East Coast Mainline make the case for reopening the Leamside Line even stronger.

The route is seen as a critical upgrade for the region that would enable an extension of the Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington, open up a series of new rail connections across the North East, and free up space on the congested East Coast Main Line by offering an alternative route for freight trains.

While Ms Haigh has backed calls to reopen the route before, she refused to give a firm pledge on the scheme while speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) at Hitachi’s plant in Newton Aycliffe.

Asked whether a Labour government would commit to reopening the Leamside Line, she replied: “Today’s plans are about setting out reform for the industry around rail and to give confidence to the industry and investors that we have a long-term plan and a strategy. The last four years of stasis have really crowded out private sector investment and lost confidence in the sector, including the disastrous decision to cancel HS2 and the way that was handled.

“We know the Government has left enormous black holes in their spending in rail infrastructure. That is why I commissioned Jurgen Maier, the former CEO of Siemens, to lead an expert-led infrastructure review into how we can deliver infrastructure far better, faster, and more efficiently in this country.

“We know there is a case for the Leamside Line that is being developed at the moment and we look forward to receiving the strategic business case when that has been done. But for Keir and I, east-west connectivity across the North will absolutely be a priority in our infrastructure strategy when we set it out.”

Leamside was at the centre of a political storm last year when, having initially being included among pledges the Government made under Rishi Sunak’s Network North transport programme announced after the scrapping of HS2’s northern leg in October, ministers dropped that promise within 24 hours – as was first revealed by the LDRS.

A Labour spokesperson said on Thursday that the party “won’t make the same mistake and treat the people of the North East like fools”.
They added that Labour was “committed to delivering a credible and transformative programme of transport infrastructure investment to build connectivity from East to West between the towns and cities of the North of England”, adding that it would consider “specific projects with the strongest cases for building connectivity across the North”.

Since the major row over the Leamside Line in October, MPs, council chiefs, business leaders, and local transport officials have been pressing the case with ministers to try and secure the future of the project.

The region was recently awarded £350,000 to progress a new “strategic outline case” for the southern section of the Leamside Line, from Washington to Ferryhill, work which will run alongside a locally-funded business case being drawn up to use the northern section of the Leamside Line in the creation of a £745 million extension of the Tyne and Wear Metro through Washington.

On a recent visit to Ferryhill, Jamie Driscoll, the current North of Tyne Mayor, who is standing as an independent candidate at the coming North East mayoral election, publicly committed to investing in the Leamside line, although he cautioned it could take more than one mayoral term for the line to become fully operational again.

“While it won’t be built within a four year term,” he said, “what has there been in the last thirty years? So getting this line built in less than ten years will be a great success and will be just one part of the integrated work we will be doing within the transport network.”