A councillor has hit out at Labour’s plans to scrap infrastructure projects across the country, saying the party “does not care for rural communities”.
The Government said there has a been a “lack of openness with the public” about the status of schemes including the plan to restore services between Stoke-on-Trent and the town of Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands.
The line was discontinued and fell into ruin after the infamous Beeching cuts of the 60s and 70s, which saw railway lines closed across the country. The line was set to reopen as part of a raft of local transport spending across the Midlands and the North in the wake of ditching the HS2 link between Birmingham and Manchester, however, this has now been cancelled.
Conservative Staffordshire Moorlands councillor for Brown Edge and Endon Joe Porter has slammed Labour’s plans, saying the line would have bought many benefits to the rural area.
Councillor Porter has slammed the scrapping of the plans by Labour
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He told GB News: “To be honest, I wasn’t shocked in a lot of ways that Labour did this. It’s not a priority for them. The local group kept talking about wanting to have a cycling path instead and bus routes which I do support.
“But the Leek to Stoke line, the reason I have been pushing for it is the Staffordshire Moorlands is one of the few places in the country that does not have a railway station that’s open and we’re missing out there for the local economy. You’ve got a station open it means freight and large infrastructure can easily transport goods into the area.
“It’s good for tourism as you can get people into the Moorlands and into the wider Peak District area. It’s also good for environment as it’s cutting carbon emissions and getting cars off the road, you’re getting HGVs off the road as in our area we have got cement works and other large industrial type places that require HGVs to transport the goods. If you can use a railway line its more convenient.
“In Endon, we have quite a prominent disused railway station that closed many years ago and it would have been really good to have that station reopened as a local tourist attraction and it would have been good business for places like the local tearoom and places like that. I’m really gutted it’s not going ahead as a lot of hard work went into it.”
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Coloured lithograph of Leek Railway Station circa 1840
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Staffordshire Moorlands MP Karen Bradley told The People’s Channel: “I was extremely disappointed to hear the Chancellor’s statement where she stated that the Transport Secretary will ‘cancel the restoring your railway programme’ as well as many other transport infrastructure projects ‘with individual projects to be assessed through her review’.
“We have shown that the Leek to Stoke line is economically viable and would bring great benefits to the Moorlands. I will continue lobbying and fighting to have the line restored.”
Councillor Porter added: “The last Conservative Government had a project that was championed by all three Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak and it was all about restoring our railway lines.
“There were a lot of red wall seats and rural areas which had had their local railway lines closed during the Labour Beeching cuts in the 70s and since then a lot of those areas have missed out on a lot of economic opportunities as a result of not having those railway links and the Moorlands is one of those areas.”
Former Northern Ireland secretary of state and Staffordshire Moorlands MP Karen Bradley has welcomed the plans
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The disused railway station at Endon
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Councillor Porter also accused the Government of “neglecting” rural communities. He added: “Obviously the new government have decided that rural areas in small towns clearly aren’t a priority for them. They clearly care more for big cities and large towns rather than they do small villages. They are neglecting these people.”
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said: “The financial inheritance this government has received is extremely challenging. The previous administration has left a £22billion public spending gap this year alone – £2.9billion of which is unfunded transport commitments.
“Communities up and down the country have been given hope for new transport infrastructure, with no plans or funds to deliver them. This Government will not make that mistake. This Government will rebuild our economic foundations whilst restoring transparency and public trust.
“In recent weeks, the gap between promised schemes and the money available to deliver them has been made clear to me. There has been a lack of openness with the public about the status of schemes – some of which were cancelled or paused by the previous government, without proper communication to the public.
“As the Chancellor informed Parliament, I am commissioning an internal review of DfT’s capital spend portfolio. We will bring in external expertise and move quickly to make recommendations about current and future schemes.”
Source Agencies
