Lords Bradshaw, Teverson and Berkeley, who together have a strong interest in railways and the South Wests’ economy today wrote to Transport minister Baroness Kramer urging her to instruct Network rail to undertake a major study with Government and business and local authorities to investigate alternative inland route(s) for the main and only railway line serving Exeter, Plymouth, South Devon and Cornwall that will give 100 year resilience to this line.

Whilst praising the work of Network Rail and First Great Western in seeking to reinstate services as soon as possible, they point out that the river and sea flooding and mud slides caused several weeks closure last winter and are likely to be even longer this winter; Network Rail estimate at least 6 weeks.

They point out that one major far eastern investor in Cornwall turned back to London at Taunton when told that he would have to continue his journey by coach, and estimates on BBC Radio 4 this morning suggested that this line closure was costing the two counties’ economies £20m per day. Over six months this £1,200m would surely build a diversion line and deal with the floods above Exeter.

Possible diversion routes exist along formations of closed lines; –

– From Exeter via Okehampton and Tavistock to Plymouth; part of this is already operational and on the remaining parts the formation is still virtually intact.
– From Exeter to Newton Abbott via Heathfield.
– More visionary, as suggested by railway consultant Jonathan Roberts, a Tiverton Parkway-Liskeard higher speed direct line roughly following the A30/38 corridor could save one hour to Cornwall and half an hour to Plymouth. It is only 60 miles!

The three peers asked the Minister to instruct Network Rail to examine alternative routes between Exeter and Plymouth, with costings and outline timescales for implementation, which can provide long term resilience to this important part of the network and report back to you within perhaps 6 months.

Copy of Letter to Baroness Kramer, Minister of State, Department for Transport

Rail network resilience in the South West

You will no doubt be as concerned as we are about the damage done to the rail line at Dawlish and other places as a result of recent storms. I am told that Network Rail believes that this line will be closed for six weeks.

Last winter, the line was closed on several occasions there, not by the sea wall being breached but by mud slides from the high cliffs above and, of course, for several weeks by the River Exe flooding the line near Cowley Bridge.

In each occasion we have nothing but praise for Network Rail and its contractors in repairing the damage and reinstating services as soon as possible, and for First Great Western keeping some kind of service running in very difficult circumstances.

However, we are now more and more convinced that it is time to investigate more radical solutions to provide a much greater long term resilience to this vital rail line to Exeter, Devon and Cornwall. The economy of the two counties depends on this line; both Devon and Cornwall councils have argued long and hard for a much greater long term resilience for this essential transport link; in this contact, I understand that a major high tech investor from the Far East was put off investing in Cornwall last winter by being asked to get off the train at Taunton onto a bus because of flooding then in the Cowley Bridge area.

Coincidentally we recently met senior representatives of Network Rail and the Environment Agency on this very subject, and stressed our concerns. Although they have some short term measures in place to prevent more serious flooding and damage to signalling equipment at Cowley Bridge, they had not yet really started considering how to make this stretch of the line resilient; here the obvious solution is to raise the tracks clear of any likely long term flood risk. They estimated that this might need an increase in track level of between 0.5m and 1 m, but that would appear quite possible in engineering terms.

At Dawlish Warren, the Environment Agency said that they did have a plan to repopulate the beach with sand but this might cause silting further along the coast. They also said that they would have to investigate how the bird population would cope with any reclamation there. Presumably after the flooding last week, they might need some pretty substantial rock armour as well.

As for the risk of mud slides, which closed the line for several days last year, there appears to have been very little work done on how to avoid a recurrence; it has already started in a smaller way this winter.

Nowhere here is any investigation taking place on creating a line that is likely to be resilient for 100 years or so. Cowley Bridge improvements could be done, but for Dawlish, we believe that the only solution is to urgently investigate an inland route for the main rail traffic. There are two possible ones along closed lines; From Exeter via Oakhampton and Tavistock to Plymouth; part of this is already operational and on the remaining parts the formation is still virtually intact. The second one is from Exeter to Newton Abbott via Heathfield.

There are pros and cons of each, and maybe other routes. However, there have been enough delays, closures and obstructions at Dawlish over the years, but particularly in the last two years, to persuade us that Government with Network Rail needs to examine alternatives on an urgent basis.

Network Rail suggested that they were limited in their ongoing work on this flood protection by the regulatory settlement for CP5 but we cannot believe that the ORR would prevent NR from spending money on such studies, even if it meant reopening the CP5 settlement.

So we request you to instruct Network Rail to examine alternative routes between Exeter and Plymouth, with costings and outline timescales for implementation, which can provide long term resilience to this important part of the network and report back to you within perhaps 6 months.

Lord Berkeley Lord Bradshaw Lord Teverson