SELRAP says East Lancashire ignored in Transport for the North’s (TfN) latest rail strategy

The group, which has been campaigning to reopen the Skipton to Colne railway line, made the statment after studying Transport for the North’s (TfN) latest strategy.

Members believe “there is nothing in TfN’s latest plan to improve this region’s dire transport connections into the powerhouse cities of Leeds and Bradford.”

Burnley and Pendle still have some of the worst levels of economic and social deprivation anywhere in England. Since the pandemic, the economic situation in several of these key marginal Red Wall constituencies has worsened.

And unbelievably, today’s train journey from Pendle or central Burnley into Leeds, just 25 miles away, takes over two hours.

SELRAP chairman Peter Bryson said: “TfN plans to spend £29 billion on rail improvements in the North over the next 25 years, but not a penny is coming to East Lancashire.

“Thus TfN has simply ignored the pledges made by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt when they relaunched, in Accrington earlier this year, the Conservative’s manifesto commitments to ‘Level-Up the UK’.

“Reopening the 12-mile long missing link strategic railway Skipton to Colne would directly connect East Lancashire with central Leeds, thus offering faster journey times of about an hour.

“This ‘missing link’ will therefore give several very large communities far better access to many good education and employment opportunities.”

Accordingly, to deliver on this government’s recent promises to Level Up, SELRAP said it is now calling on Transport for the North to make Skipton and Colne their top priority project.