Dartmoor Line wins South West awards

A rural rail line which reopened in 2021 after it was closed for almost 50 years has won two awards.

The Dartmoor Line won Showcase Award and Community Award at the Institution of Civil Engineers' (ICE) South West Civil Engineering Awards.

The £40.5m project reconnected communities between Okehampton and Exeter in Devon.

A flood prevention scheme in Sidmouth and a fish pass at Buckfast Abbey also won awards at Tuesday's ceremony.

The Dartmoor Line was the first railway line to be reinstated under the Department for Transport's Restoring your Railway initiative.

Since 1997, the line had only opened on some summer Sundays after regular services stopped in 1972.

The Dartmoor Line officially opened in November 2021.

The partnership between Network Rail, Great Western Railway (GWR) and Devon County Council won the Showcase Award and the Community Award, in recognition of "outstanding community engagement and the benefits it brings to rural communities on Dartmoor", organisers said.

Completed in nine months during the Covid-19 pandemic, the project involved laying 11 miles (18km) of track, replacing 24,000 concrete sleepers, and installing nearly 29,000 tonnes of ballast.

Sally Walters, chair of judges, said: "The Dartmoor Line is an inspirational example of what can happen when civil engineers and communities work together.

"The scheme has created a template for the successful restoration of other disused railways across the UK."

The Sidmouth Flood Alleviation Scheme won the 2022 Judges' Special Award and the South West People's Choice Award, following a public online vote in July 2022.

Judges said they were impressed with "its clever design, combining floodwater storage and sustainable drainage with a beautiful outdoor amphitheatre".

The Resilience Award, in recognition of "ingenuity in adapting to the impacts of climate change", was presented to those behind a fish pass at Buckfast Abbey.

Event organisers said it was a "state-of-the art replacement to a failing Victorian pool and weir on the River Dart, aimed at improving upstream migration of salmon and sea trout".

Awards were presented at an event in Bristol on Tuesday evening.

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