North East Major Schemes Prioritisation Pro forma – Horden Sea View Rail Station April 2014 North East Major Schemes Prioritisation Pro forma – Horden Sea View Rail Station This pro forma should be used to provide evidence in support of specific proposals in relation to the prioritisation of major schemes in the North East LEP area. The pro forma allows for the provision of evidence covering the policy, value for money and deliverability criteria, as well as an opportunity to describe the scheme and its context. Scheme promoters are asked to provide evidence in support of their scheme, including a narrative, and any quantitative and qualitative evidence that demonstrates: • how the scheme delivers or contributes to the achievement of the North East’s policy objectives; • how the scheme represents value for money; and, • the deliverability of the scheme. Guidance on the evidence required to complete the pro forma is provided in the document Guidance on Evidence Requirements and the pro forma should be read and completed with reference to that guidance. In addition to the space provided for the presentation of the full evidence on the contribution any scheme makes to each of the policy criteria, the pro forma includes a number of summary boxes at the end of each criterion. These summary boxes are intended to highlight the key contributions that the proposal makes to delivering policy outcomes in the North East. An assessment will be made based on the full evidence submitted including any narrative, not solely on the information in the summary boxes. These boxes should however assist promoters in providing appropriate quantitative data and will assist the independent assessment team in undertaking the scheme assessment. Scheme promoters should therefore complete these summaries where possible in addition to providing the appropriate evidence under each criterion. It is not necessary to complete all the policy sections and boxes, just the ones where evidence is available that is relevant to the scheme under assessment and the criterion in question. Evidence must be presented on value for money and deliverability. Please use this pro forma to highlight the significance of any designations or sites included within the evidence, including reference to where designations feature in national, sub regional or local policy. Graphs, tables, hyperlinks and maps should be included if appropriate. Please use more than one page per criterion if required. Scheme Background and Description: Scheme name Horden Sea View Rail Station Scheme Description: Location - The site of the proposed Horden Sea View rail station lies to the east of Peterlee and Horden and is located on land primarily adjacent to the Durham Coast railway line. The Ordnance Survey Grid reference for this station is 444370 541768. The proposed Horden Sea View rail station would be accessed from minor roads which adjoin onto the A1086 and an improved network of walking and cycle routes connecting the site of the proposed station with Peterlee, Horden and the surrounding area. Figure 1 : Location Plan Strategic Context of the Scheme The scheme proposes the construction of a new two platform station at Horden Sea View on the Durham Coast Rail Line between Hartlepool and Sunderland that would be served by the existing hourly Northern Franchise service. It would create an economically and environmentally sustainable solution to some of the access constraints of East Durham. The expected outcome is that in the region of 40,129* annual return trips could be made from the new station at Sea View by 2015 (Aecom: Peterlee/Horden Station Outline Demand Forecasts March 2012). Some of the most deprived and disadvantaged communities in the County and the NE LEP area will benefit from enhanced connectivity and improved accessibility. This will promote equality of opportunity and access to employment, education and health facilities and other opportunities for residents of Peterlee, Horden and the surrounding villages. It will also ensure improved connectivity and improved accessibility to planned residential areas within Peterlee and the surrounding villages, thereby supporting sustainable housing growth. It will help support and boost existing businesses, encourage economic growth and inward investment by enabling improved access for local people to education and training opportunities and by providing businesses improved access to the wider NE LEP labour market. The area is important strategically as it links the Tyne and Wear and the Tees Valley conurbations.(*Note these forecasts do not include the contribution of the proposed Low Hills housing site in Peterlee, which is intended to provide up to 730 dwellings in the next five to ten years i.e. short to medium term). East Durham bears the scars of the rise and fall of the mining industry the key spatial legacy of which is the dispersed settlement pattern of small urban areas separated from one another by tracts of open countryside. Parts of the area i.e. Peterlee / Easington are ‘urban’ in nature large parts of the area are coastal and/or rural in nature with low population densities and poor connectivity. As such it is an area which is recognised to suffer from poor access to a range of employment, health, educational, leisure and other services and facilities which are more readily accessible within the main urban areas of both Tyne and Wear and the Tees Valley conurbations. Both the A19 and the Durham Coast line (which currently bypasses Peterlee and the surrounding villages by virtue of no station being available) form part of a regionally important transport corridor linking the conurbations of Tyne and Wear to the North and the Tees Valley to the south. The area is one of the most deprived areas in the NE LEP Area. Since the 1970s it has witnessed a period of major economic restructuring, with decline of coal mining which devastated the local community being followed by a major and lasting campaign for new employment including the development of Enterprise Zones. The former Peterlee Development Corporation was extremely successful in attracting jobs to the town, but its demise in 1988 removed a major job creating agency and source of investment from the town. Furthermore the recession of the 1990s and the current on- going global economic downturn has led to a number of large employers leaving the town or going out of business. Despite significant attempts to revitalise and regenerate the local economy over the last twenty to thirty years the economic structure of the area remains weak with high levels of unemployment (the area has a current unemployment rate of 7%, which compares unfavourably to County Durham as a whole which is 4.8% and Great Britain as a whole, 3.7%). The area has high levels of economic deprivation with many of the population living in areas which are in the top 10% and 30% deprived LSOAs when compared with the County and England as a whole. Some 61.90% of the LSOA's in the area are in the top 20% deprived areas in the Country. In terms of the IMD income domain some 47.62% of the LSOA's in the area are in the top 20% deprived areas in the Country and in terms of the employment domain some 88.1% of the LSOA's in the area are in the top 20% deprived areas in the Country. The area also suffers from lower average incomes compared to the County, as a whole, and high levels of worklessness. Many people are in poor health and have low mobility due to lower than average levels of car ownership. The provision of a rail station will directly benefit Peterlee which was founded in the 1940s under the new town programme, to act as a new commercial and manufacturing centre for the area and to provide new housing for residents from the former pit villages. It will also directly benefit many of the surrounding larger and smaller villages of East Durham which include Horden, Easington, Easington Colliery, Shotton Colliery, Wheatley Hill, Wingate and Blackhall Colliery (see map below – the catchment area for key figures in this submission are identified in blue). This area has a population of 61,458 (all ages) with a working age population of 39,144 which is 11.8% of the County’s working age population. Figure 2: Catchment of the Proposed Horden Sea View Rail Station Provision of the proposed rail station would represent a major improvement to sustainable public transport in this part of East Durham which has low levels of car ownership. It would reintroduce direct rail access to and from this part of East Durham, the area being last served by the Horden Railway Station which was closed nearly fifty years ago in 1964 as part of the Beeching cuts. Furthermore, the coastline from Sunderland to Hartlepool, the Durham Heritage Coast, has emerged from its industrial past to be a catalyst for economic revitalisation through tourism. Costing £10m this renaissance started in the 1980’s and has led too much of the coast being of national and international nature conservation importance and is becoming a major visitor attraction albeit with limitations on access. It is expected that a new station on the Durham Coast Line would help create a new access point, complementing those already existing and creating new ‘walk out – train back’ leisure opportunities. The East Coast Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy February 2008 includes the aspiration for a station on the Durham Coast line and does not rule it out, subject to evidence of journey to work patterns changing, or if a developer or other funder wishes to consider providing a station. This is further reflected in Network Rail’s Connecting Local Communities Route Plans of 2009. Clearly the capital funding available from Durham County Council should be considered material in this regard.