Tarporley railway station: Grant Shapps criticises council in funding row

Beeston Castle and Tarporley station was closed in 1966 as part of the Beeching Cuts

The transport secretary has criticised a council for refusing to grant £5,000 to the reopening of a railway station.

A campaign group hoping to reopen Beeston Castle and Tarporley station saw a bid for the funds turned down by Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Grant Shapps told the House of Commons the refusal showed the council was paying "lip service" to its climate emergency commitment.

The council said the government should "fully fund the project".

The station was closed in 1966 following the publication of Dr Richard Beeching's report, the Reshaping of British Railways, which spelt the end for thousands of stations and hundreds of branch lines across the country.

However, it was earmarked in 2020 as one of 50 sites across England and Wales that could reopen and received a £50,000 government grant.

'Frustrated and perplexed'

A subsequent bid for a further £5,000 from the council was turned down, a decision which the campaign's chairman Michael Flynn said was "astonishing", given that it would help with decarbonisation.

"The only conclusion I can draw is that they are more interested in playing politics than supporting this immensely popular and once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver new infrastructure in a rural area, which is chronically underserved by public transport," he said.

In its bid to the Department for Transport, the campaign group envisaged the Transport For Wales rail services would stop at the new station, providing more than 20 services a day to Chester and to Crewe.

Mr Shapps said the council was refusing to pay a "mere £5,000" towards the reopening

Mr Shapps made his comments during an exchange with Edward Timpson, the Conservative MP for Eddisbury, who has backed the reopening campaign.

He linked it to the council's unanimous decision in May to declare a climate emergency.

"Local authorities that declare a climate emergency should be prepared to pay more than lip service to the issue," he said.

"I understand, unfortunately, that the Labour-led Cheshire West and Chester Council is still refusing to contribute a mere £5,000 to his valiant efforts to reopen Beeston Castle and Tarporley station, the only potential station between Crewe and Chester."

Mr Timpson declined to comment when asked about the decision, but a senior local Conservative source told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he was "frustrated and perplexed" by the council's stance.

Karen Shore, the council's cabinet member for environment, highways and strategic transport, said the authority "welcomes any proposals for much-needed investment in our local rail network [but] believe that it is right that the project is fully funded by central government, as part of the wider investment needs for our national rail infrastructure".

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