A recent article in the Northumberland Gazette announced the welcome idea of new Tyne ferry services but also suggests that once again, the dualling of the A1 to the Scottish Border is proposed.
Dualling the A1 to the Scottish Border was previously put forward in a failed petition back in 2011/12 which only gained 624 signatures, the proposer, Anne-Marie Trevelyan being later elected as MP for Berwick-Upon-Tweed in 2015 and serving until 2024 when the seat was eliminated and replaced by the new North Northumberland seat.
In that time, multiple promises to dual the road have been made, with the previous one notably just days before the announcement of the 2024 General Election. The winning candidate for the new seat of North Northumberland was David Smith of Labour, who notably did not commit to dualling in his election campaign, while the previous incumbent Anne-Marie Trevelyan did.
The main opposition to dualling is the environmental cost of the scheme, with figures for just the 11 miles of dualling proposed between Morpeth and Ellingham forecast to release 1.44m tonnes of CO² over 60 years by figures from Transport Action Network
Interestingly, in another article in recent weeks, the former Berwick Upon Tweed MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has stated that the ‘Conservatives need to go green’ too. In the article, there is the contradiction that dualling of the A1 is obviously bad for the climate, but that it is ‘pragmatic’ to dual for ‘safety and economic reasons’.
These views are clearly contested by groups such as Space4Gosforth, which states that injuries and deaths on already dualled sections per mile are very similar to single carriageway sections, and that focussing road safety spend on only the A1 would not tackle wider road safety problems on other roads. Increased traffic potentially will add to problems already faced rather than relieving them.
Similarly, the economic case for dualling is also questionable, as the calculation of economic benefit is largely an assumption that faster travel will bring economic growth, but that may omit the fact that widened roads quickly fill to capacity again, undoing the benefit rapidly. The A19 and Tyne Tunnels are an example of this where road capacity has filled in the years since the second tunnel opened.
The failure of the above petition, plus the lack of commitment at the election for the winning candidate suggests that the political appetite to dual the route is actually quite low, and given the evidence to suggest that dualling the A1 is going to come at a high environmental and financial cost, while far from guaranteed to produce a return economically or be a safety improvement at all, then shouldn’t other options be more fully explored?
ECML not A1
The petition for the Northumberland Coast Loop rail route, for example, has more signatories than the 624 that the ‘Dual the A1’ petition recieved, and is one just part of several wider local campaigns to improve rail services along the Northumberland Coast, so politically, investing into the East Coast Main Line (ECML) would likely gather much more support than dualling the A1.
Secondly, organisations such as East Coast Main Line Authorities (ECMA) have an Invest East Coast campaign, a consortium of cross-party local councils, combined authorities and Scottish Regional Transport Partnerships have, since 2013, stated the case for the ECML investment, as it is a rail route that connects a £800bn per year economy
£1 into ECML = £2.73 back
Investment into the East Coast Mainline is likely to deliver a much more assured economic benefit, is based around one of the the cleanest, greenest and most sustainable modes of transport (an electrified mainline railway), with route such the Northumberland Coast Loop being potentially part of the ‘…linear network, with a wide range of services converging with, and diverging form it.’, as mentioned above.
As for branchlines, one obvious candidate for added support would be the Aln Valley Railway, which this publication, (a recent addition to the N.C.L. library after a visit to Barter Books), which aspires to connecting the very popular town of Alnwick, home to Alnwick Castle, The Alnwick Garden & Lilidorei as well as Barter Books and other small attractions to the ECML.
The Northumberland Coast Loop would be a new passenger route that would branch from the ECML between Pegswood and Morpeth by taking the Morpeth North Curve towards Bedlington, then sharing the Northumberland Line from Bedlington to Newcastle Upon Tyne, offering new, direct connections to/from SE Northumberland towns such as Blyth and Bedlington, as well as North Tyneside and major centres of business such as Cobalt Business Park (one of the largest business parks in Europe).
If you’d like to support the Northumberland Coast Loop, please add your signature to the petition here, or share this blog post via your social media.
Thanks, RH.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 