Nine rail schemes receive further funding to provide better access to jobs acoording to Wendy Morton MP’s speech

I am pleased to announce additional development money for nine rail works under the Restoring Your Railway Fund today (20 June 2022). Communities in Yorkshire, Staffordshire, County Durham, and others will be one step closer to being reconnected to the rail network, with the transformative leveling-up prospects for employment, houses, and education that public transportation delivers.

The Restoring Your Railway Fund is making significant progress in reopening previously closed rail lines: the £500 million commitment is supporting the development or delivery of over 45 schemes across England and Wales, and services on the Dartmoor Line between Okehampton and Exeter have already been reintroduced.

I’m pleased to announce additional financing for plans that were submitted to Restoring Your Railway as early-stage concepts, which have already received help from the fund to develop a Strategic Outline Business Case and are now moving forward. I’m also announcing financing for concepts that are farther along in their development.

The Barrow Hill line between Sheffield and Chesterfield; the Ivanhoe Line between Leicester and Burton on Trent; new stations at Meir in Staffordshire, Haxby in Yorkshire, Devizes in Wiltshire, Ferryhill in County Durham; Aldridge station and line upgrade in Walsall; reinstating the Fleetwood line; and the Mid Cornwall Metro scheme for services between Newquay and Falmou are among the nine schemes receiving additional funding with the potential to level and reconnect communities.

The Restoring Your Railway Fund is now focused on developing and delivering the advantages of the programs within its portfolio, more than 50 years after the railways were fundamentally transformed during the infamous Beeching cutbacks of the 1960s, when thousands of miles of track and stations were closed.

If built, these routes and stations will contribute significantly to leveling the country, revitalizing high streets and bringing fresh life to previously isolated districts.

Along with this announcement, we’ll be releasing a Restoring Your Railway fund update, which will detail the development of all programs that have received financing and will be available in both Houses’ libraries as well as online.