Plan to restore town rail link put to government

Plans to reconnect a Shropshire town to the railway network are to be put to the government later.

Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire Helen Morgan has a Westminster Hall debate, over proposals to reopen the line between Oswestry and Gobowen, on Wednesday afternoon.

Such debates give MPs an opportunity to raise local or national issues and receive a response from a government minister.

The restoration of the link was approved last year as part of the Restoring Your Railway fund, but the new government confirmed it was cancelling the scheme.

That initiative would have funded 38 railway projects in total.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the cuts were needed to address a £21.9bn black hole in public finances and the Department for Transport would assess each individual project as part of a review.

The previous government had announced in October the Oswestry scheme would be fully funded to completion.

The line had closed in 1966 during the Beeching cuts.

Helen Morgan said the proposed scheme was "just really important for Oswestry"

The MP said she would like a minister to come to the town.

"It's just really important for Oswestry because if you want to grow the town, if you want people to access better jobs... better education opportunities, we need to have a really good integrated public transport network.

"This railway is part of that, so I'm really, really keen to make that strong case to the government."

Meanwhile, Oswestry Town Council will discuss plans for a shuttle bus on Wednesday evening.

It claims passenger numbers from a new dedicated bus would strengthen the campaign to get a rail link.

Duncan Kerr, a Green member of the town and Shropshire councils, said a reliable, integrated shuttle bus would encourage more people to use public transport when travelling from Oswestry to Gobowen railway station.