MP campaigns to extend train services for Melton borough

Alicia Kearns has submitted two bids to the Department for Transport’s Restoring Your Railway Fund, which will see a total of £500million spent on restoring lost railway connections across the country.

She wants to improve connectivity around the borough to increase opportunities for residents ‘to embrace greener ways of transport’.

Mrs Kearns said: “My first bid seeks to bring more regular services to Bottesford on the Poacher Line.

“Having heard residents’ concerns about the A52, especially near Bottesford, on the doorsteps countless times, an improvement in train services will reduce demands on our roads and give the Vale more options.

“The second bid I submitted calls for increased services to Nottingham and Leicester, via Syston and Loughborough from Melton Mowbray.

“This will better connect residents travelling for both business and leisure purposes and reduce some of the frankly bizarre route and changes residents currently have to endure.”

This will be the second funding round for the fund, with the deadline now passed, and a third round will be opened in November.

Among the 10 successful first round bidders was a proposal to reinstate passenger services on the Leicester to Burton (Ivanhoe) line.

The Department for Transport is inviting MPs, local councils and community groups across England and Wales to propose how they could use funding to reinstate axed local services and restore closed stations.

The funding is split into 3 categories - the Ideas Fund (to restore rail services other than rail station creation or restoration); accelerating existing proposals, to increase development of a previously submitted rail proposals; and proposals for new or restored rail stations.