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
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