Freight onto Rail: Derbyshire County Council
The council is committed to promoting sustainable transport and minimising the negative impacts of freight transport and fully supports the Government’s Strategic Rail Freight Vision which sets out its long-term rail freight strategy outlining what is needed to increase rail freight volumes. The Strategic Rail Freight Network is designed to provide a reliable robust strategic network with diversionary routes which will connect national major freight routes and allow for longer heavier freight trains for aggregates and 8ft 6ins containers. Derbyshire is a major producer of aggregate and mineral products, which are principally consumed elsewhere in the country. Transport of these goods raises a significant environmental issue in terms of the sensitive environment of the Peak District, which is the main source of limestone working, and the burden that lorry traffic would place on local communities. Developing and implementing a freight onto rail policy has involved the council building a strong relationship between the rail-freight operators, Network Rail, Department for Transport, the Rail Freight Group, manufacturers, freight forwarders and extractive industries. Good liaison has also been built internally within the council between transport, policy and mineral planning areas. In the 1990s, officers were looking to reduce lorry movements of quarry materials and at the same time councillors were being petitioned by locals on the same issue. Through negotiation and working together, and with the support of the Government’s rail- freight facilities grants, a win/win transfer to rail was achieved and hundreds of lorry movements were removed from the roads each week. The connections were already there at both ends, that made the transfer smoother, but it was the will on both sides to work together that led to action. There has been a further spiral of enhancements, including grants for modern handling facilities, which have Building on the work of Derbyshire County Council, two of the major quarries have developed sites to build significant new cement plants from which all the products are transported out by rail. RWE and EoN also move limestone produced in Derbyshire by rail for flue gas desulphurisation. Derbyshire County Council has also managed to get agreement with Stockport local authority to reopen Bredbury Terminal, which is now removing significant aggregate traffic from the A6 to and within Stockport. This is an example of a relatively short viable aggregates flow of 25-30 miles. |
now led to more trains running daily. The desire among stone producers to use rail has also resulted, rather paradoxically, in movement by rail of materials for general road building and construction of the second runway at Manchester Airport. In addition, the council has worked with several open-cast coal producers to move freight onto rail.