Could the Peak District get another railway line?

For many years walkers and cyclists have enjoyed Derbyshire's picturesque Monsal Trail. The former rail line's Victorian viaduct and tunnels have become a popular tourist attraction, and have welcomed about 330,000 visitors a year.

But some campaigners are calling for the reinstatement of the route as part of a permanent rail line, linking the Peak District National Park's most cut-off areas with Manchester and Derby, causing consternation and anger among many trail users.

Why is the proposal so controversial, and is the reopening of the line even possible?

The Manchester and East Midlands Rail Action Partnership (MEMRAP) wants the reopening of a 36-mile stretch of track between Matlock, Bakewell, Buxton and Chinley, known as the Peaks and Dales line.

The line was opened in the 1860s but was closed in 1968.

The campaign group has said reopening the line could benefit the Peak District's tourism trade by giving people across the North West, South Yorkshire and the East Midlands a new rail connection.

Part of the line has also been maintained as a heritage railway by Peak Rail.

MEMRAP's chief executive Stephen Chaytow believes the rail line would also reduce harmful emissions from tourists travelling to the Peak District by road.

"More than 90% of the visitors to the Peak District National Park have to come by car," he said.

"To have emissions from 10 million cars each year really doesn't seem the right way to be going."

He said the 40,000 people who lived in the central area of the national park could not currently "participate in the labour markets properly unless they have a car".

The line could also open up a new, more direct link between Manchester, Derby and Nottingham.

The proposal has seen some support online, with more than 16,500 signing a petition for its reinstatement.

Reopening the Peaks and Dales line would mean the Monsal Trail, including the Headstone Viaduct and six tunnels, would no longer be solely used for cycling and walking.

A spokesman for the Peak District National Park Authority said any proposal would need to ensure that a rail line was "not detrimental to the landscape features of the national park", as well as providing a cycling and walking trail.

As a result, MEMRAP said the viaducts and tunnels would have to be used for the reopened rail line, in order to meet the national park's own planning specifications.

Monsal Trail user and campaigner Lee Cooper Smith said: "As soon as you take the trails away from the line, away from the viaducts, you've lost all the appeal.

"You've just got a basic trail. If you lose it, you lose one of Derbyshire's great tourist attractions which we need to keep hold of."

Since the line was closed in the 1960s, its renovation and upkeep has been taken on partly by the Peak District National Park.

The 8.5-mile trail attracts 330,000 every year, and since lockdown restrictions eased in May, the trail has seen a substantial increase in visitors.

Mr Cooper Smith believes losing the trail would result in a loss of tourists to the area, and a petition he set up to save the Monsal Trail has received 7,600 signatures.

"There are going to be those who will benefit but, from what I've seen, there are going to be more people who are disadvantaged by the reinstatement of rail," he said.

He also said an old feasibility study, published in 2004, concluded a rail line would "only be beneficial in removing 2% of traffic off the roads".

"It would become a glorified freight line for the quarries," he added.

Mr Chaytow said the line would need to have a full passenger service otherwise "it wouldn't get backing".

But he said it could also be partly used as a freight service for limestone quarries in the area.

He said: "I think everybody recognises that if we're going to bring the country's economy back from this deep recession after Covid, we're going to need support from many businesses and the quarries really underpin a lot construction across a lot of the country."

One reason the proposal is being discussed is a £500m government fund launched to look at potentially reopening railway lines closed in the 1960s.

Roughly 5,000 miles of track were closed and more than 2,300 stations were axed in that decade, mainly in rural areas, following the Beeching report.

In January, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the money would fund feasibility studies on whether lines that were closed could reopen.

MEMRAP has been working on proposals to get a feasibility study produced.

But journalist and rail expert Philip Haigh said the likelihood of any of the historical railway lines reopening was "extremely low".

"It's often a 'dead cat' announcement to distract people from other things," he said. "It's very easy to announce and it's very hard to deliver."

He said it would be cheaper to offer a more direct service between the East Midlands and Manchester by upgrading existing rail links on the Hope Valley Line.

Estimates have suggested reopening the Peaks and Dales line could cost as much as £720m.

"The cost of reopening any rail line will be a big factor," Mr Haigh said.

To work out whether there was enough public demand to fund a railway, he added, one would have to "spend millions of pounds in feasibility studies".

"Tourism sounds great, but I don't fundamentally believe it has the numbers to support the probable hundreds of millions of pounds cost of reopening the railway."

Mr Haigh said the planning issues caused by trying to reopen a railway in a national park could also be prohibitive.

The scheme would need to be agreed through passing either an act of Parliament, or a local transport work act order.

"All these things are possible, but it does need the demand for it to be there.

"It's doable but it's difficult."

Philip Haigh is pessimistic about many lines closed in the 1960s reopening.

He said: "The main reason for that is it will come down to cost."

An example of the potentially staggering cost can be seen in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

A seven-mile stretch of track was used by freight trains up until 2000, but the cost of reopening it could be millions of pounds.

"That's just a short stretch of track in a flat area of the countryside that's effectively overgrown," he said.

"I think of all the projects that I've seen, Ashington in South East Northumberland has probably got the best case as there are lots of people who will benefit from it.

"The railway's already there, it's a freight line, so it would just need upgrading."

But he thought hopes for a reopened Peaks and Dales line would be dashed.

"I'd love to see this line reopening, the scenery looks stunning, but it's an expensive thing to do and I doubt I'll see it," he said.

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