Last week we had the news that surprised no one; that our Victorian railway line is in worse condition than suspected and services will be suspended between Whitehaven and Sellafield ‘until further notice’. I believe it will likely be November or later before service resumes.
I can report to residents that from the 11th August, trains will run from Carlisle to Whitehaven instead of terminating at Workington, after I asked Network Rail to explore this. They’re also looking at whether they can run as far as Corkickle in the south, although there is no decision on that yet. From that day the early morning rail replacement bus will start from Seascale after I raised concerns with Northern that the timetable meant those in the south of the constituency trying to get to Carlisle for work or study weren’t able to arrive before 9am.
While the closure is extremely frustrating, the Bransty tunnel upgrade work is long overdue. But it comes only after years of delay under the previous government and months of lobbying by me and others last year to finally get it booked in. In truth both this and a wider upgrade of the Cumbrian Coast Line should have been done years ago.
The case for an upgrade was made over a decade ago by local leaders but it fell on deaf ears under the previous government until an unfunded pre-election promise was made at the last minute without the detailed plan in place. We had to start almost from scratch last year as the initial business case went out of date while gathering dust on a shelf under the Tories. For the last year I’ve been working locally and nationally to bring it back from the dead.
Following two meetings with the Rail Minister and multiple meetings at official level the updated business case is now progressing through the system.
Given the importance of the railway to the delivery of the civil and defence nuclear work at Sellafield and Barrow, a cross-departmental working group has been established to look at funding to deliver the final business case and the full upgrade, which is expected to cost up to half a billion pounds.
The working group has now met and several actions are underway prior to my next meeting with the Rail Minister in October to discuss the next steps. My hope is that with contributions from Transport, Energy and Defence departments we can finally bring our railway out of the 19th century and into the 21st.
While we hope the tunnel upgrade will improve Whitehaven Harbour, that is not its purpose. A study I secured reports back in September with the next steps for finally returning the beautiful harbour to its natural state.
Josh MacAlister MP 