CONNECT Bude, which campaigns for the reopening of railways in the area, has received encouraging news, writes Christine Williams.

Recently the Great Western Rail franchise has published a document, following an 11-month consultation period during which people were invited to express their views on what should be the rail priorities throughout the 2020s across an area from the Thames Valley to the south west.

At a meeting chaired by Richard Wolfenden-Brown at Bude’s Falcon Hotel, on Tuesday, September 25, Dr Michael Ireland of Okerail said that North Cornwall and West Devon had submitted the highest number of responses per postcode area.

Prominence was given in the document to the Okehampton line which respondents were keen to see reinstated and GWR agreed to work with local partners to reinstate regular services and provide a station improvements fund. Indeed, Okehampton to Exeter was the only service specifically named as ‘urgent’.

Among priorities were expanding the network to boost local economies and the reopening of closed routes in rural areas. Two additions to the network mentioned were the Taunton to Minehead line and the route between Exeter and Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock.

The report mentions the potential for freight, which would be enhanced by the re-opening of the Tavistock to Exeter route because its gradients are less steep than the current route via Dawlish. In anticipation of a regular daily service between Okehampton and Exeter in late 2019 or early 2020 the meeting agreed it was time to hold conversations with bus operators so that a fast connecting coach service could be in place.

The meeting was disappointed to hear that a timetable of summer Sunday rail services between Okhampton and Exeter which had been displayed in the main Bude bus shelter had been vandalised. Arrangements were discussed for the annual meeting which will be held in the Falcon Hotel at 11am on Saturday, October 27.