West of England Metro Mayor Dan Norris has said he is “very optimistic” that the Portishead Line could soon be back on track.
Progress has been made on the long awaited scheme in recent years, but it has been in limbo since July after the government axed the fund set to cover its contribution to the project. Now a government review will consider whether it still wants to fund the reopening of the railway.
On Tuesday February 4, Mr Norris and the leaders of North Somerset, Bristol, and South Gloucestershire councils travelled to London to urge rail minister Peter Hendy to support the plans. Mr Norris described it as a “very positive” meeting. He said: “I am very optimistic that we can find a way forward and that I will be able to share more news soon.”
Cllr Mike Bell, the leader of North Somerset Council, said: “We had a really good meeting with the Minister for Rail, Peter Hendy, and it was great to have so much support from West of England partners and Mayor Norris at that meeting.”
He added: “We are working really hard to have a solution so we can start delivering the project for Portishead this summer.”
At its full council meeting on January 14, North Somerset Council voted unanimously to approve a huge raft of measures to start constructing the Portishead railway this summer — if the final business case is approved by the government. The council hopes construction can begin in the summer and the first trains can run along the reopened railway in 2027.
North Somerset MP Sadik Al-Hassan has also been a vocal supporter and promised to “try everything” to get the scheme back on track. He presented a petition to Parliament with 5,604 signatures in favour of reopening the Portishead Railway.
£32m has already been spent on the project. The project’s total expected price tag of £152m was being funded by the West of England Combined Authority, the Department for Transport, and North Somerset Council. But shortly before Network Rail submitted the full business case for the railway to the government, the new Labour government announced that the Restoring Your Railway fund, from which the government’s contribution had been set to come, was being axed.
The railway line was closed in 1964 amid the “Beeching cuts.” Restoring the railway only requires just over three miles of new track. The line as far as Pill has already been restored — although work would need to be carried out on this stretch of the line to make the track suitable for passenger trains and not just freight. New stations would also need to be built in Portishead and in Pill.
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