MIDDLEWICH’S long-awaited railway line reopening should be at the front of the queue as the government proposes to reverse historical closures, a longstanding campaigner has said.

The Government has pledged £500 million to reverse some of the Beeching cuts of the 1960s – so-called after engineer Richard Beeching whose report led to the closure of thousands of miles of railway across the UK.

And while the Northwich to Sandbach line – via Middlewich – closed in 1960, some three years before the report was published in 1963, a station to serve the town could still be in contention to receive a slice of the new funding.

“Whether Middlewich was closed Beeching or pre-Beeching, we must be near the front of the line,” said Stephen Dent, longstanding chairman of the Mid Cheshire Rail Link Campaign. “The business case is virtually ready.”

Stephen authored a 2016 study of the line, which led to transport authorities including Cheshire’s two borough councils and the Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership taking up the gauntlet.

An LEP report from August 2019 suggests two hourly services could link Middlewich directly with Birmingham, Crewe, Warrington, Preston and Manchester by 2033 – in line with the arrival of HS2 Phase 2b.

It added that proposed Middlewich and Gadbrook Park stations could each serve around 140,000 passengers per year.

Before its closure, Middlewich station had seen wartime reduction of services which continued for years after.

By 1956, there were just four weekday passenger services each way. These stopped altogether in January 1960

Stephen said: “We were due the final strategic outline business case reports, but no one has been in touch from the LEP.

“I am assuming they are waiting for the government review of HS2, which will quite effect the final report.

“As soon as we get the government’s announcement on HS2 that could release a lot of money for the north. If they don’t go ahead with Phase 2b, they will have to do something and we will be in the front line for that. It’s just a waiting game for us, now.”

Meanwhile, Cheshire East Council’s emerging masterplan for the redevelopment of the Brooks Lane industrial estate has allocated land for a station to serve the town.

Stephen said: “The process is painfully slow, but now they seem to have reached that stage of certainty over where the station itself will go.

“As a campaign, we have actually succeeded in getting the transport authorities doing the work and taking the job off us. That is really what we were campaigning for.

“All we are doing now is, as a stakeholder group, keeping a watchful eye on the progress.”