Stocksbridge to Sheffield in 11 minutes
Penistone and Stocksbridge has, for too many years, just about managed with a poor transport system – inadequate bus network, road network and passenger rail service – but just managing isn’t good enough.
Last week I met with former Transport Minister, Andrew Jones MP, and the Don Valley Railway Group, to get a better understanding of what needed to be done to bring a rail passenger service back to the Don Valley line.
The Don Valley group advised that they’d been working to bring back passenger trains on this line for many years and remain confident that this project is viable given the right support and investment.
This line is underused and so the plan is to bring back passenger services between Stocksbridge, Deepcar and central Sheffield using the existing track linking the town with Sheffield’s Victoria Station. The line currently services the Steelworks at Stocksbridge, but is currently only used twice a day by a single return freight train.
Mr Chris Bell, of the Don Valley Group, advised the meeting that a great deal of work had been done, including at least one feasibility study, but that no steps had yet been taken to agree a way forward He also noted that the planned restoration could offer an 11 minute passenger service between Stocksbridge and Sheffield.
Andrew Jones is the MP for Harrogate - another Yorkshire constituency - so he knows our northern railways very well. Andrew discussed ideas around how we might take a project like this forward so that it becomes part of a fully funded rail development project which gave us all added insight.
Our area has seen a lot of new housing development, and will see more, and so increased traffic congestion and pollution – but very little transport infrastructure has been provided at the same time - this must change. We will be calling on Sheffield City Council to work with us to address this ever increasing problem and one way would be to invest in projects just like this.
Chris, from Don Valley Railway, said following the meeting he had an even clearer picture of how to progress this project and offered to help do more to raise the profile of his organisation’s work.
The meeting was hugely constructive and I was left even more determined that Stocksbridge would get this passenger service. And whilst we all left the meeting confident of the benefits of the service, it was clear that we needed to do more to make sure that this long overdue project goes ahead.
This service almost certainly shouldn’t have been shut down in the first place but I’m increasingly hopeful that with local and regional support and government backing we’ll make progress in getting the line reinstated again.
