SELRAP Skipton to Colne railway campaigners make economic case to MPs and councillors

SELRAP campaigners believe that the Skipton to Colne project has an excellent financial business case and is low-risk rail project. The capital cost is estimated to be around £430m. tand it could reopen in the early 2030s.

The project would build a 12-mile-long missing link to reconnect two existing separate lines and thus extend the flagship Airedale line service from Skipton into East Lancashire. This would see journey times transformed with a journey taking just 58 minutes from Nelson into central Leeds.

The project would link together many city-sized regions and several major towns with benefits for Yorkshire and Lancashire in terms of employment, housing, education and tourism.

Campaigners also pointed out that all other recent rail restorations (reopenings) have been successful and have exceeded their sponsors’ initial expectations.

However, Skipton-Colne is a “strategic cross-border” project. The project team today includes the three big authorities of Lancashire, North Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire. The Skipton to Colne project now therefore needs strong and effective leadership.

Looking ahead, and due to this key strategic cross-border issue, SELRAP recommends that either the Department for Transport and/or Transport for the North now takes ownership of this transformational project as they have the necessary skills and contacts across the whole of the North.

To this end, campaigners feel they should fund an engineering study to fully establish the essential high-level output statements for the entire scheme. This needs to include engineering surveys and alignments, environmental survey, and land registration.