Rail Connections to London: Rural Towns
Chris Coghlan Excerpts(1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) on securing it and for speaking so ardently about the critical importance of rail connections in rural areas. She also set out a strong case for the historic yet modern and classic yet avant-garde town of Shrewsbury, and all that it has to offer people across the United Kingdom.
It would be remiss of me not to reflect on the fact that a debate that began with Shrewsbury grew into a fascinating tour of the rail challenges and opportunities in rural towns the length and breadth of our beautiful country.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
My rural constituency is lucky enough to be only 21 miles from London, but the train from Dorking travels at 21 mph, which, according to my arithmetic, means that it takes one hour to get there. Some 1,900 people have signed a petition calling for a faster train, and the director of South Western Railway is interested. Will the Minister meet me to discuss faster trains to Dorking?
Keir Mather
I am very glad that the hon. Member managed to sneak in before the end of the debate. I cannot fault his maths on the challenge that he describes. I will ensure that his request for a meeting is passed on to the Rail Minister, who, I am sure, will be very glad to meet him.
Colleagues must forgive me, because although I have reflected closely on their points during the debate, and shall feed them into Department for Transport processes on improving rail connectivity between rural towns and London, the substance of my remarks will focus on rail connections to Shrewsbury. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury worked so hard to secure the debate and deserves a full response to the issues that she raised.
Members from across the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge), for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) and for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher), and the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton)—I could go on, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you will be pleased to know that I will not—made the crucial point that good rail connections are vital for connecting people to job, service and leisure destinations. They are catalysts for economic growth. People deserve access, irrespective of where they live, to all the benefits that the railway has to offer. That is why it is so important that we deliver on our promise to bring the railway back into public ownership under Great British Railways.
GBR will bring 14 separate train-operating companies and Network Rail into a single organisation that will be able to plan a fully integrated train service on which passengers can rely. GBR will be better able to offer the fast and frequent connections to, from and between major economic centres. When people need to change trains—for example, when they change from a rural connection to an inter-city service—GBR will be far better able to make connections dependable, as they are for passengers on the world’s best-performing railways. Of course, in a system that needs to cater for many needs, and to connect many towns and cities across the country, while improving performance and reducing costs for taxpayers, some compromise is necessary. Although it may not be possible in every instance to provide direct services to all places, we are determined to ensure that GBR offers people excellent access to their nearest major economic centre, for jobs and services, and to major rail hubs for onward connections.
Rural Railway Stations: Step Free Access
Chris Coghlan Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this important debate. Accessibility on our railways is not simply a question of engineering and infrastructure development; it speaks to the kind of society that we want to build: one that enables independence and provides equality of opportunity and dignity for every passenger, regardless of their mobility.
Rural stations in particular can be lifelines for those who would otherwise find travel difficult, but as we have heard many remain inaccessible to those who need them the most. That is why I am delighted to mark the progress being made at Par station in my constituency. For many months, I have worked with Network Rail, Cornwall council and the Department for Transport to ensure that the long-promised accessible footbridge at Par remains part of the Mid Cornwall Metro scheme despite the significant pressures on the national Access for All programme, which may have proved useful.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
In my constituency, in Bookham, access to the train to London is via an uneven path through the woods. Network Rail has not prioritised accessibility upgrades. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must do more with accessibility schemes, like those he just mentioned?
Noah Law
I certainly agree that the Department for Transport and Network Rail must look where there are gaps in funding those schemes to see what can be done to help plug those gaps. As we have heard from hon. Members across the Chamber, the Access for All scheme has sadly come to represent the kind of pork barrel politics that characterised the last Government’s approach —and approach that said, “We will make plans that you will love but we’re not going to tell you how we will fund them.”
Happily, the outline work on the Par station project is completed, and local residents in Par are delighted, but project partners are preparing for a key go or no-go decision in December. There remains the £1.5 million additional funding gap that must be resolved if the scheme is to proceed to full design and delivery. I urge Cornwall council to make a final push to secure that investment so that much-needed step-free access can finally be delivered for local passengers. I urge the Minister to do everything that he can to help us get this project over the line. It represents not only an important improvement for residents but a clear demonstration that we can deliver the kind of change that so many have long hoped for.
Cornwall, with its dispersed population and its growing demand for greener and better-connected travel, stands to benefit greatly from that ambition. Investment in accessibility is not just an afterthought; it is central in ensuring that every part of the country, in urban and rural areas alike, shares equally in the economic and social opportunities that modern inclusive transport can unlock. Accessible public transport should not be seen as a luxury or an optional add-on; it is a basic expectation for every community, however rural. It deserves continued support across the rail network.