Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence


Memorandum by Devon County Council (RR 16)

RURAL RAILWAYS

  1.  Devon County Council welcomes this opportunity to comment on the future of rural railways. This officer response is being submitted in advance of the County Council's formal consideration of the Strategic Rail Authority consultation on Community Railways.

  2.  Devon is a predominantly rural county with a large land mass and population of over 700,000. Despite many closures of rural branch railways in the 1950s and 1960s Devon maintains a significant rail network. It has two direct routes to London termini, 38 stations on the national network served by five train operating companies. Devon County Council was responsible for opening two new stations on the national network in the 1990s and is also the owner of one station (Okehampton).

  3.  Devon County Council believes that rail is an important component of sustainable transport. Different elements of the network are important to different categories of rail user. Inter-city services are vital for business traffic to London/Birmingham and other centres; main line and regional services are important for leisure travel (both for local residents and also as a means of access for visitors to the holiday areas of Devon and Cornwall); rail is important for local commuter journeys (mainly centred on Exeter) and lastly for community access—the latter being the category most normally synonymous with "rural railways".

  4.  The importance of rural railways to the communities which they serve should not be underestimated. The existence of a rail line (and a franchise to underpin services on that line) gives a certainty of continuity which cannot be matched by the bus industry. It is all too widely appreciated that bus services can be here one year and removed the next. Rural rail services provide the hubs around which other links such as connecting bus services, community transport, and taxis can be built.

  5.  Devon County Council recognises the funding difficulties of the rail industry. However it should be noted that it is not the rural rail network which has caused such problems. Spiralling costs have been seen on major projects, such as the West Coast Main Line upgrade.

  6.  At the same time, the County Council recognises the scope for cost reduction offered by the Strategic Rail Authority's Community Rail initiative. This has the potential for reducing costs through exemption of particular routes from group standards. In this respect the Community Rail initiative is a potentially helpful device, but the issue of over-costly group standards really deserves to be tackled in its own right, across the whole network.

  7.  It is recognised that there may be scope for improving the efficiency of rural rail operations through vertical integration. The objective should be to use such efficiency gains in order to procure a better rural rail service for the same budget, rather than taking such efficiencies as cost savings. The Community Rail initiative may also make it easier to justify some limited line or station reopening, if the cost can be minimised through more appropriate standards. Such an aspiration in Devon is the Drake Line project, involving reinstatement of the former line between Bere Alston and Tavistock.

  8.  Devon County Council already funds some rural train services as part of its integrated transport network—both weekday (additional Exeter to Barnstaple services as part of the strategy to reduce car commuting) and weekend (Dartmoor Sunday Rover recreational bus/rail network). There certainly is potential for growth in patronage building on initiatives for local marketing and innovative publicity. However, it should also be noted there is not a large residue of untapped funding available within local authorities to significantly enhance services. The prime objective must be to make better use of the funding which is already available to the rail industry.

  9.  The County Council also recognises that involvement of local authorities, or the broader community, may be beneficial in improving the management of stations. In this regard local authorities have been considerably frustrated by the withdrawal of Rail Passenger Partnerships (RPP) funding, since this offered the opportunity to secure improvements through matching Local Transport Plan or Section 106 contributions with rail industry funding.

  10.  The County Council does not believe that bus substitution of train services is an appropriate option. Previous precedent does not suggest that this is a cost effective means of retaining an existing patronage; for the reasons noted above bus services are likely to be less stable than rail services, whilst the pattern of the highway network is often not conducive to providing an attractive replacement bus service.

Ian Harrison

Deputy County Environment Director

19 April 2004





 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2005
Prepared 21 April 2005