Campaigners fighting to reinstate rail services through the Woodhead tunnel in Derbyshire have welcomed action by political leaders to back away from a road "bypass" plan.

Local campaign group Save the Woodhead Tunnel said the decision to de-prioritise funding for the Mottram-Tintwistle A628 bypass opens the way to a re-opening of the trans-Pennine Woodhead rail route.

Regional leaders at the 4NW are now looking for quick, achievable and sustainable ways of reducing traffic flows in the Longendale and Glossop area.

The Save the Woodhead Tunnel group argues that reopening the Manchester-Sheffield line would take freight and passengers off the road and on to rail.

“At £100million a mile the bypass never made economic sense and Highways Agency figures show traffic would actually rise in the local areas as a result of it being built,” said spokesman Jonathan Atkinson.

“Everything is in place to reopen the Woodhead line for freight and passengers, relieving traffic congestion in the Longendale and Glossop area, all that is missing is the political will at the highest level. The Woodhead line makes sense economically and environmentally for the communities that line the route.”

Campaigners are now calling on Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon to impose weight restrictions on the A628 to take heavy haulage traffic off the route and commission a full feasibility study into reopening the Woodhead rail line.

The Regional Leaders Forum, 4NW, acted in response to cost inflations, and agreed to delay the A57/A628 Mottram, Hollingworth and Tintwistle bypass until after 2015. They took advice from Transport in the North West.

Save the Woodhead Tunnel is a grassroots community campaign with members on both sides of the Pennines in High Peak and Yorkshire. Founded in January 2008, the campaign has been successful in winning assurances from Government that the Woodhead Tunnel will be preserved for possible future rail use.

Labour MPs Angela Smith (Sheffield Hillsborough) and Clive Betts (Sheffield Attercliffe) have both campaigned for rail services through Woodhead.

Info from Jonathan Atkinson, Save the Woodhead Tunnel spokesman.

More information Save the Woodhead Tunnel

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