Direct Wrexham to London rail link rejected

Plans for a direct rail service between Wrexham and London have been rejected by the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road.

Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway had proposed running five daily direct trains to the capital.

However, earlier this month Network Rail had warned that the route was already congested and there was not enough timetable capacity for extra services.

Shropshire is the only county in England without a direct service to London and Shrewsbury MP Julia Buckley said she would continue to fight to see that introduced.

In a report, Network Rail also said increased use of the line would raise the risk of a collision at crossings along the route and that it could not support the application.

The Office of Rail and Road agreed and Stephanie Tobyn, its director of strategy, policy and reform, said: "It was clear that there was insufficient capacity to approve any of the services without a serious negative impact on the level of train performance that passengers experience on the West Coast Main Line."

She said the regulator recognised the the potential advantages of the proposals, but the southern end of the route needed "space in the timetable to provide resilience".

Adding more services to the route would "further weaken punctuality and reliability, not just at the south end of the WCML but elsewhere as well," she said.

In 2008, direct trains between Wrexham and London were reintroduced for the first time in 41 years.

But the Wrexham, Shropshire, Marylebone Railway company ended the service in 2011, blaming falling customers numbers.

A more limited service returned in 2014, run by Virgin and then Avanti West Coast, but that came to an end last summer.

The Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway proposal would have involved more regular trains to the capital.

Under the plan, the service would have stopped at Gobowen, Shrewsbury, Telford Central, Wolverhampton, Darlaston, Walsall, Coleshill Parkway, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes, on its journey from Wrexham General to London Euston.

It would have bypassed Birmingham by using a railway line only used for freight, with trains running directly from Wolverhampton and Walsall to Nuneaton for the first time, a spokesperson for the Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway said.

Buckley said she had met rail industry officials in recent months and it had seemed the prime minister was backing the scheme for approval.

She said she would work with transport firm Alstom to produce a revised bid "as soon as possible".

The scheme would also have brought new jobs, she said, along with new opportunities for local businesses and residents.

"Unfortunately, the regulator has decided not to approve the application at this stage," the Labour MP said.

"This is incredibly disappointing, especially given the significant amount of work that has gone into supporting this bid to boost economic development across our region.

"This is of course a set-back for us, but we're not giving up."

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