Disappointment at rail setback (From Gazette & Herald)

Disappointment at rail setback

CAMPAIGNERS working to re-open a rail link between two Ryedale towns say they are "extremely disappointed" at a decision to suspend vital funding.

The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) is withholding financial backing for the Malton-Pickering link, which will mean plans to see it up and running have had to be shelved.

Ernie Preston, from the Rail Passenger Committee, said it was a major set-back for rail users. "In the short term it now means it will not happen and that's bad news for people, particularly in this area," he said.

Mr Preston said that the link - which would give passengers the chance to travel through to Whitby by rail - would have boosted the area's economy.

"At the moment it takes four hours each way for passengers to get from West Yorkshire to Whitby by rail, but just an hour and a bit by car. The rail link would take no end of traffic off the road and bring more people into the national park. It would have been a major benefit.

"All is not lost but the brakes have been put down pretty hard."

County councillor Murray Naylor, a long-time champion of the rail link, said "I am appalled by the latest turn of events ... it makes me despair that we will ever get a comprehensive rail network again."

He explained: "Freight facility and track access grants are to be cut back or stopped altogether and there is to be no money for new infrastructure schemes, such as the reinstatement of 6.5 miles of former track from Malton to Pickering which would have given access to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and would have linked Whitby and Pickering direct to York and the national network, thereby helping tourism in an area much in need of an economic boost as agriculture experiences further decline and removing traffic off generally poor roads.

"Officers at County Hall have spent hours researching and promoting studies and plans to achieve reinstatement to Pickering and more widely to encourage a number of rail freight schemes in the county. All now to no purpose as with the stroke of a pen Mr Bowker deletes all such initiatives to concentrate on maintaining the current network because past mismanagement - both political and professional - has created such an unholy mess.

"Come on Mr Darling and Mr Bowker get a grip, sort your plans out and stop to think before you take such arbitrary decisions. If you don't future generations will judge you accordingly."

A spokesman for the SRA said it hoped the funding problem would only be temporary.

"We are not suspending it indefinitely, we are suspending it for a year or so," he said. "We will not be accepting new applications, but the scheme will resume."

Updated: 10:18 Wednesday, January 29, 2003