Bebside railway station

Bebside railway station was a railway station that served the village of Bebside in Northumberland, North East England from 1850 to 1964. It is proposed that a new station should be opened close to the original to serve Blyth as part of the Northumberland Line project.

History

The station opened on 3 August 1850 by the Blyth and Tyne Railway. The station was situated on the south side of Front Street on the A19. The goods shed was north of the level crossing and east of the running lines; this was closed on 9 December 1963. The station was closed on 2 November 1964.

Reopening proposals

Proposals to reintroduce passenger rail services to the currently freight-only section of the former Blyth and Tyne Railway system have been discussed since the 1990s.

In the early 2010s, Northumberland County Council became interested in the proposals, commissioning Network Rail to complete a GRIP 1 study to examine the best options for the scheme in June 2013. This report was published in March 2014 and was followed in June 2015 with the commissioning of a more detailed GRIP 2 study at a cost of £850,000. The GRIP 2 study, published in October 2016, confirmed that the reintroduction of a frequent seven-day a week passenger service between , and possibly a new terminus to the east, at , was feasible and could provide economic benefits of £70 million with more than 380,000 people using the line each year by 2034. The study suggested that a new ''Blyth Park & Ride'' station should be constructed close to the site of Bebside station to serve Blyth due to its proximity to the A189 dual carriageway.

Despite a change in the political leadership of Northumberland County Council following the 2017 local elections the authority continued to develop the project, encouraged by the Department for Transport's November 2017 report, ''A Strategic Vision for Rail'', which named the line as a possible candidate for a future reintroduction of passenger services. Consequentially, NCC commissioned a further interim study in November 2017 (dubbed ''GRIP 2B'') to determine whether high costs and long timescales identified in the GRIP 2 Study could be reduced by reducing the initial scope of the project, but the report failed to deliver on this.

Nonetheless, the county council has continued to develop the project, hiring AECOM and SCL Rail as contractors to develop the scheme on their behalf in 2018 and allocating an additional £3.46 million in funding for a further business case and detailed design study (equivalent to GRIP 3) in February 2019. Revised plans were revealed in July 2019 which were reduced in scope from the 2016 GRIP 2 study and proposed 4-phase project to reduce the initial cost of the scheme. The proposed station at Bebside (now referred to as ''Blyth Bebside'') would have only been added during Phase 2. However, in August 2020, it was reported that these four proposed phases might be merged into a single one.

The North East Joint Transport Committee's bid for £377 million of funding from the UK Government's £1.28 billion ''Transforming Cities Fund'', submitted on 20 June 2019, includes £99 million to fund the reintroduction of passenger services between Newcastle and Ashington, while further work is ongoing to secure additional public and private investment for the project.

The Department for Transport allocated an initial grant of £1.5 million towards the project costs in January 2020 which was supplemented by an allocation of £10 million of funds from Northumberland County Council the following month. This funding enabled AECOM to begin detailed on-site ground investigation works in October 2020. The allocation of a further £34 million of UK Government funding for the project in January 2021 enables the necessary land to be purchased, detailed designs to be prepared and some early preparatory and site works to begin. In January 2021, it was anticipated that the UK Government would fund the remainder of the project cost, estimated at £166 million as of January 2021, once the final phase of design works were completed. However, in April 2021, it was reported that government officials were seeking to reduce the cost of the project as part of the Department for Transport's ''Project SPEED'' initiative. It was reported that the cost-saving measures under consideration included dropping the proposed station at Bebside from initial project scope and cutting initial service frequencies from two to one trains per hour. Although Minister for Railways Chris Heaton-Harris later reiterated the UK Government's commitment to opening the new station at Bebside, it remains unclear whether other cost saving measures, such as reducing service frequencies, are being pursued.

A planning application for the proposed new station at Bebside was submitted to Northumberland County Council on 5 March 2021. The submitted planning documents indicate that the station will be located approximately to the south of the original one, where the line passes through a cutting. The station will have entrances on both sides of the tracks and its two platforms will be accessed via lifts and stairs from a glass-sided footbridge. A 293 space car park will be provided adjacent to the western entrance while a new cycle path will be created to link the eastern entrance directly to Bebside and Blyth (crossing the A189 road via a new bridge).

Northumberland County Council submitted a Transport and Works Act Order application to the Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps on 26 May 2021, under which they would be conferred certain additional powers deemed necessary for the new stations to be constructed and the line upgraded to carry regular passenger services. If approved, the new ''Blyth Bebside'' station will be constructed by the project's primary construction contractor, Morgan Sindall. It is anticipated that the main construction phase could begin in early 2022, enabling an opening date in 2024.

References

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External links

{{Proposed rail infrastructure projects in the United Kingdom

Disused railway stations in Northumberland
Former North Eastern Railway (UK) stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1850
Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1964
1850 establishments in England
1964 disestablishments in England
Beeching closures in England
Proposed railway stations in England