Getting Leamside on track is key to region’s growth goals

With a campaign to revive the 21-mile Leamside Line gathering steam, hopes are high of a wider regional rail renaissance. Here, Steven Hugill looks at the economic potential of the cross-County Durham and Gateshead route’s second coming and its broader significance in the ‘levelling-up’ world.

4Among the avalanche of parliamentary platitudes, there’s one phrase that always sticks out pointedly from the slide.

I’m talking about ‘political football’.

It’s an expression that will never not conjure images of MPs, hopelessly incongruous in Commons finery, engaging in corridor keepy-uppies and penalty shootouts beneath Westminster’s intricate archways.

The reality, alas, has never been quite so fun.

Amid the many awkward football-based photocalls down the years, we’ve had David Cameron forgetting his loyalties and switching allegiance from Aston Villa to West Ham United.

We’ve had Tony Blair and Kevin Keegan, bedecked like twins in matching black trousers and white shirts, playing head tennis in a school playground (which Blair lost).

We’ve had Jeremy Corbyn mirroring his sieve-like polling popularity with an equally porous goalkeeping performance when facing youngsters’ shots on Hackney Marshes.

And, perhaps most excruciatingly, we’ve had Boris Johnson, way before his Prime Ministerial period ended in a pile, leaving an opponent in a similarly crumpled heap following a rugby-style tackle during a live TV charity kickabout.

I thought of the expression recently, when it was whipped off the shelf by Conservative MP

Paul Howell – he of the Sedgefield constituency seat once held by Blair – in reference to the Leamside Line.

Having fallen victim to the sharp edges of Dr Richard Beeching’s famous axe in the 1960s, the mothballed 21-mile stretch of rail track between Tursdale, in County Durham, and Pelaw, in Gateshead, is undergoing something of a renaissance.

Where once abandoned, the line has been given new life and meaning, a campaign for its comeback turning it into shorthand for economic revitalisation in the ‘levelling-up’ world.

Labour told a recent Transport for the North conference it would revive the route – which stopped serving passengers in 1964 and carried its last coal delivery in the early 1990s – if handed the keys to Downing Street at the next general election.

And that’s when the old cliché made its latest return.

Arguing the red rose party’s pledge represents an unashamed vote-grabbing ploy, Sedgefield’s MP also warned of little, if any, financial detail, which he said ran risk of damaging an ongoing business case for the track, adding “the last thing” he wants “is the Leamside Line to become a political football”.

Of course, such back and forth is standard fare in the political landscape.

But as a region, we haven’t the time, nor the economic buffer, to let our rail connections be kicked about.

Restoring the Leamside Line would revive passenger links across the east of Newcastle, while helping ease congestion on the East Coast Main Line by diverting a chunk of freight services away from the flagship London-to-Edinburgh connection.

And in an environment where the North East has been shunted out of HS2, it would make for some meaningful progress.

Because the Leamside Line isn’t just about the 120,000-plus people living along its corridor.

It’s about the 70,000 residents of Washington, who would benefit from a Metro extension to create a so-called Wearside loop as part of its wider reopening.

And it’s about the connectivity the line would bring to the entire North East, thanks to the route’s links into existing tracks from Northumberland to Teesside, the latter particularly significant given its freeport status.

We need positive change, and with the Government having handed the region two investment zone deals in its Spring Budget – which it says will help entice firms to the region in newly created business clusters – ensuring we have a rail network capable of matching companies’ expectations is therefore even more imperative.

We’re due to see the Northumberland Line – another passenger route cut in the 1960s – reintroduced next year, restoring links between Newcastle and Ashington.

And Darlington, Middlesbrough and Sunderland stations are undergoing huge transformations, at no little cost, which bosses say will significantly bolster capacity.

But if the UK is serious about boosting the economies of places within the so-called ‘levelling-up’ geographies, it needs to ensure further connections are fashioned to make it happen.

And bringing back the Leamside Line represents a key stop on that journey.

Rewriting the script

Media

Words by Alison Gwynn Chief executive at North East Screen

A new programme of prosperity

The region’s screen sector stands on the verge of huge growth thanks to the commitment of the area’s local and combined authorities, broadcaster partnerships and infrastructure. Here, Alison Gwynn, chief executive at North East Screen, which supports skills and talent development, business growth and helps attract large scale TV and film productions to the area, highlights the potential of the region’s changing landscape.

Lights, camera… investment.

When The Northern Studios officially opened in Hartlepool earlier this year, just days after FulwellCain Studios unveiled plans for an 8450-job, Wearside-based “global production destination”, it added yet further momentum to the region’s increasingly burgeoning broadcast landscape.

From the gangster grit of Get Carter to the more recent magic of Harry Potter and the captivation of television favourites such as Vera, George Gently and fly-on-the-wall documentary Ambulance, the area has long provided an eye-catching backdrop for gripping drama.

But now, thanks to the headlinegrabbing evolution of its production scene, the region stands ready to enjoy a new episode of prosperity, one that will not only provide a welcome economic boost but deliver employment opportunities for the talent of today – and tomorrow –across numerous sectors.

4Up until two years ago, although the screen industry in the UK was in boom, only one per cent of content was made in the North East.

What that meant was that anyone who wanted to work in the sector – and who couldn’t get a job on the few productions filming in the region – had to leave the area.

As a result, we had a huge, missed opportunity with talent disappearing to work in the sector elsewhere, or giving up on their dreams and finding an alternative career.

This, thankfully, is changing.

A year-and-a-half ago, all 12 of the region’s local authorities created an ambitious collaboration – the North East Screen Industries Partnership (NESIP).

And what it means is, for the very first time, all local and combined authorities across the North East are working together, co-funding the infrastructure and support we need for the industry to survive and flourish.

Following this, a partnership with the BBC was confirmed and it made a commitment to spend at least £25 million on programmes over the next five years.

In the first year, that has resulted in 13 productions coming out of the region, from ‘Scarlett’s Driving School’ and ‘24/7

Pet Hospital’ to ‘James Arthur’s: Out of our Minds’ and ‘Robson Green’s Weekend Escapes’.

Nobody is doing us a favour by working with our region; we’ve got the talent, we’ve got the ideas and we’ve got brilliant people, so we are more than capable of making more and more programmes here.

Training is at the heart of it all, and the support of our local colleges and universities is key.

We are here to provide the next step, a bridge to industry, helping to attract people early as they choose their careers and letting them know this is now a viable industry.

We also want to support people crossing over from other industries and help them identify transferable skills.

The opportunity is now real for all those who have the desire, whether they are carpenters, joiners, electricians, accountants, make-up artists or just people who have a spark of a brilliant idea.

The opportunity to work in the creative sector in the North East has never been greater.

We’ve been brave with our ambition so far.

Now we need to make it happen.