Local MP warns of possible 10-year delay to vital cliff works
THERE ARE growing concerns that work on the SouthWest Rail Resilience Programme on the coastal railway between Dawlish and Newton Abbot could be delayed for up to a decade.
The concerns relate to phases four and five of the works, between Dawlish and Holcombe and Parsons Tunnel to Teignmouth respectively. Phase four, which involves vegetation clearance and cliff strengthening, is almost complete, but Newton Abbot MP Anne Marie Morris raised concern that a planned seven-day engineering possession envisaged for March 2024 may not take place due to a lack of rail replacement buses and that funding may not be able to be rolled over into future financial years.
Furthermore, she says she has been told that phase five – which originally proposed a £950 million deviation of the main line away from the cliffs onto Holcombe beach – may be subject to a 10-year moratorium on any new works being authorised. She raised her concerns at a Public Accounts Committee hearing on 24 April. In response, DfT Permanent Secretary Bernadette Kelly said:‘I do not recognise the language of a 10-year moratorium on new work’but promised to write to Ms Morris about this.
